90 % labourers in Delhi working as bonded labour: Swami Agnivesh

New Delhi, Dec 1 (UNI) About 90 per cent of labourers in Delhi are working as bonded labour, with most of them not even getting the benefits of various laws like the minimum wages act and the contract labour act, according to a survey.

The survey, titled 'Bonder Labour: Survey and Rehabilitation', was conducted by Swami Agnivesh's 'Bandhua Mukti Morcha'.

It reveals that almost 80 per cent of these bonded labourers do not even get weekly holidays while over 50 per cent work for more than eight hours a day with most of them not being paid any additional remuneration for doing extra work.

Unravelling the contents of the survey before mediapersons here, Swami Agnivesh said,''as per a rough estimate, over 30 lakh people in Delhi are working as bonded labourers. What is worse, most of them are not getting benefits of various labour laws like the Minimum wages Act and the Contract Labour Act. Of these, almost 50000 are children who are working as bonded labourers in various part of the city.'' ''That the capital city of the country should throw up such a figure is indeed shocking and calls for serious introspection,'' Swami Agnivesh said.

He said the survey, held by the Bandhua Mukti Morcha from December 1 last year to March 25 this year after the Delhi Government urged it to do so, threw up several other shocking revelations.

Among the findings of the survey was the fact that nearly 99.9 per cent labourers are not aware of existence of any act like the Minimum wages act and the Contract Labour Act, that merely four per cent of the labourers are getting the benefits of the Labour laws.

For example, just 0.7 per cent labourers are getting extra remuneration for working for extra hours.

The condition of labourers in the SC and ST category is worse, with just 6.2 per cent of Schedule caste labourers and 4.7 per cent from the Scheduled Tribes getting minimum wages as per the minimum wages act.

''It is clear from the survey that the condition of labourers in the unorganised sector is shocking and calls for serious efforts on parts of the Government and social organisations to improve the situation,''Swami Agnivesh said.

Blaming the Delhi Government for inadequate efforts to solve the problem, he said,''repeated pleas on our part to the Delhi Government to address the problem have failed to elicit any response from the authorities. For example, the report of the survey on Bonded labour in Delhi has been lying with the state Government for the last three months without the authorities taking any action.'' To highlight the issue, the Bandhua Mukti Morcha plans to hold a conference in the capital on December 20 and 21 where the issue is expected to come in for a detailed discussion.

UNI AR YA KN1831