In Kalahandi, houses raise the wall against migration

BHAWANIPATNA: To curb migration in Kalahandi district, the administration has started creating awareness by painting and writing on the walls of houses provided under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in 2019-20 in Madanpur Rampur block, about 65 km from here. The messages in Odia describing the migrants’ plight are accompanied by paintings of workers going outside the state in search of livelihood.
Around 50 houses out of 3,000 have got work orders and three have been completed in the block. In the first phase, a house is provided to a beneficiary at a cost of Rs 1.30 lakh and a punchline is written on the wall.
It states, “Dadan khati gale re sab-Ame hairan hebar nahi. Jiba nahi au dadan khati-chhadi ame gaon bhita mati (Everyone has gone outside as migrant worker. We don’t want to be harassed. We will not go outside in search of work any more leaving our native place)”.
The idea was implemented by block officials who hope that people will think twice before migrating. Block development officer (Madanpur Rampur) Rumana Jafri said in every panchayat walls of five houses will be painted.
There are 19 gram panchayats in the block that has a population of 80,000 and literacy rate of 57%. Besides advertising on the walls, the administration is sensitising people by organising gram sabhas.
“The block comes under ‘push factor’ where workers are forced to leave their native place owing to lack of basic amenities. There is lack of roads in the rural pockets as people live on the forested land,” she said.
Hundreds of workers migrate without registering their names in the labour office. Some go through the unregistered labour agents and some of their own accord. A labour officer requesting anonymity said it is tough to stop them because the workers are lured by the agents whereas most of them return home after being tortured by the owners.
“The government implemented schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which ensures 200 days works a year in the rural pockets but practically they don’t get job locally. That’s the main reason behind migration,” said Dilip Kumar Das, director of an NGO. Some people die and some lose their limbs while working in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Maharastra, Das added. He said in the past migrants have faced problems to bring back the body of dead workers.
“Cases have been filed with human rights organisations or in police stations. The body is then handed over to the family members of the deceased after lot of paper work. In some cases, poor workers are held captive for a long time by ‘labour agents’, who ask them to return the advance money taken from him,” said Das.
If migration has to be checked, then the government needs to provide all facilities to the poor like ensuring employment, communication, electricity, drinking water, health and education along with bridges over many rivers. There are hundreds of villages that need to have proper communication facilities, Das added.