District Collector Gandham Chandrudu asked revenue officials to close down the Sagar Brick Kiln at Kanumpalli in Garladinne mandal and collect penalty amount from the owner to provide assistance to child labourers after reviewing the progress of ‘Bonded labour and Child Labour’ release case.
At the Revenue Bhavan here on Monday, the District Collector said no such incident of bonded labour or child labour employment should get repeated in the district anywhere and Labour Department officials must take care of it. He asked the Labour Department officials as to why the penal amount of Rs.20,000 was not collected from the owners of the Sagar Brick Kiln though three of the directors had come out of jail on conditional bail.
Revenue Divisional Officer Gunabhushan Reddy said that the bonded labour release certificates were sent to the district revenue officials in Balangir in Odisha from where the 32 bonded labourers including four child labourers were sourced by the kiln owner through the manpower supplier identified as Puran Bag of Balangir, who had taken Rs.35,000 per labourer as advance.
Meanwhile, the RDO told the District Collector that all the labourers were sent with Rs.25,000 as expenses and train fares till Visakhapatnam, and another Rs.200 each was given to them. In fact, The Hindu had reported in these columns how the labourers were given only Rs.200 each at the time of hurriedly boarding the train and they did not have money even to have food. A local NGO had arranged food for all the 41 persons travelling including the family members of the bonded labourers.