BALANGIR MIGRANTS TO BE BROUGHT BACK TO CAST VOTES Sunday, 09 March 2014 | SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

BALANGIR MIGRANTS TO BE BROUGHT BACK TO CAST VOTES

Sunday, 09 March 2014 | SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

While it has shockingly been a normal state of affairs in the western part of Odisha that lakhs of migrant labourers don’t exercise their franchise, the Balangir district administration here has mooted an applauding plan to bring them back to their respective villages to cast votes during the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.  

“The district administration would soon convene a meeting of all the registered labour contractors in order to ask them to bring back the workers recruited by them to work outside the State so that they would be able to cast their votes in the forthcoming elections,” Balangir district Collector M Muthukumar told The Pioneer on Friday. Muthukumar also warned that strong action would be taken against those contractors who would disobey the instructions.

According to the reports, over lakhs of workers from the State are now working in various brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. They have been to these States since last September/October and are in debt bondage, which forces them to work there till completion of their contact period, it added.

Reports also say that around one lakh people from Bolangir district alone are now engaged at various brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh and other states. However, officially around 21,000 labourbers have been hired by more than 200 labour contractors from this district.