Organisations working for construction workers have demanded a welfare board for migrant workers to take steps to check their exploitation.
On the International Workers Memorial Day observed on Monday, seven organisations came together under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu Construction and Unorganised Workers Federation and urged the State government to set up a welfare board to deal with the issues of migrant workers. According to the representatives of the federation, there were lakhs of undocumented labourers in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries. “When workers die, the families here don’t even get their bodies,” said federation general secretary M. Subbu.
‘No help from embassies’ The federation members say the Indian embassies did not attempt to help the workers. “There is a special officer but we don’t even have statistics of the number of undocumented workers abroad,” said one of them.
Federation vice-president Pon Kumar said, “From news reports we have learnt that since 2010, nearly 1,000 Indian workers have died in foreign countries; but no Indian official has approached their families. The Nepalese Prime Minister visited Qatar after he learnt that a Nepali worker died each day doing construction work.”
Most of the workers had little formal education and were from remote villages. They left India on visitor’s visas for six months, lured by the promise of high salary. When the term expired they were unable to return.
K. Gopal Reddy, retired coordinator of Building and Wood Workers International, called for pre-departure training for workers and appointment of district-level offices by the Tamil Nadu Manpower Corporation. “This would prevent sub-agents from luring ignorant workers. The government should also restore the immigration check,” he said.
