When news of around 78 migrant workers from his district being held captive illegally in neighboring states by their employers reached the District Collector of Jhabua, he immediately acted on it and launched an operation to rescue them. First, he spoke directly to the collectors of the districts in Karnataka and Maharashtra where the labourers were, and then sent teams to bring the labourers back. Within 24 hours, the teams were able to rescue them and bring them back to their home state. Indian Masterminds spoke to District Collector Jhabua, Mr Somesh Mishra, to find out more about the workers’ plight and their rescue.
LURED WITH FALSE PROMISE
Around 78 migrants from eight villages of Jhabua district were taken from Jhabua to Karnataka and Maharashtra by touts with the promise to provide them work on a fixed daily wage of Rs. 400 per person. On reaching, their cell phones were taken away and they were forced to work long hours in sugarcane fields without the daily fixed pay that they were promised. One of the labourers managed to connect with his family in the village and told them about their plight. The family mobilised more people and a group of villagers went to the District Collector and informed him about the workers’ plight and also requested him to rescue them.
RESCUED WITHIN 24 HOURS
When Indian Masterminds spoke to DC Somesh Mishra, he spoke in detail about the labourers’ sorry state of affairs and their subsequent rescue. “They were forced to put in long hours of work in sugarcane fields with no proper food. And even the promised fixed daily wages were not given to them. Their cell phones were also taken away and they were not allowed to make any contact with their families. Somehow one of them managed to connect his family in the village and told them about the conditions they were living in. Some villagers came to me, and we got to know. We had a talk with the collectors of the districts the labourers were in and sent our team to rescue them. Within 24 hours, around 78 migrant labourers were rescued by our team.”
MORE LABOURERS RESCUED
This was not all. News came that around 100 adivasi migrant labourers from Guna and 85 more from Katni districts were also stuck in similar situations in places like Pune and Kolhapur in Maharashtra and the Salaiya district of Karnataka. The administration swung into action and all of them were rescued from their work sites in similar fashion.
TO BE GIVEN JOB CARD AND WORK
DC Mishra said that the administration now plans to rehabilitate the rescued workers. “These workers were in horrible conditions for around 25 days. After we took charge of them, we first placed them in 7 days quarantine and provided all medical help. We plan to give job cards to those who don’t have it. And with the combined efforts of our team and CEO Zila Panchayat, we are trying to generate work for them at the district level.”
REASON BEHIND MIGRATION
Workers from Madhya Pradesh, especially Bundelkhand, Mahakaushal and tribal-dominated areas, frequently go to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to work as these rapidly developing states offer high wages compared to other states. In this process, mediators and touts play a major role of luring the men away from their villages with promises of good wages and other perks. In most cases, these promises turn out to be false and the workers get trapped in other states, resulting in a Jhabua-like situation. Thankfully, in the Jhabua case, the administration’s alertness and willingness to help resulted in all the migrant labourers being rescued promptly and were brought back to their home state safely.
