HYDERABAD, June 1: The District Vigilance Committee on Bonded Labour, at a meeting held here on Tuesday, recommended a three-year ‘legal aid cell’ project, aimed at providing legal assistance to bonded labour, and called upon the Sindh government to forward it to the federal government for its approval and funding.
Speaking on the occasion, DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed, who presided over the meeting, said that the project costing Rs4.011 million would include a law officer and his staff, computer and other accessories, furniture, toll free helpline, paralegal training of peasants as well as informative material.
Office accommodation for the cell had already been donated by the district government, he added.
He said that both the agriculture and industry sectors would be included as target groups for the identification of bonded labour, and a participatory approach would be adopted with the help of the Sindh police, the bar association, social workers and revenue officials to eliminate bonded labour from the district.
Regarding the rehabilitation of bonded labour, the DCO assigned Ramzan Memon, member of the National Committee on Bonded Labour, to suggest another project for the purpose.
He suggested that the rehabilitation project should have infrastructure in each social sector, such as provision of education, health, water supply, drainage and sanitation as well as micro-credit and other facilities.
NRSP-ILO project manager Ali Nawaz Nizamani and project officer Nazar Joyo said that under the rehabilitation project of their organization, approved by the federal government at an estimated cost of Rs9.58 million, as many as 70 houses would be built at the project site near the SITE area of Kotri and handed over to the freed labour.
They said that over 20 acres of land had also been purchased through the World Bank, where all basic facilities, including health and education, would be provided, whereas the remaining land would be used for cultivation.
They said that as many as seven freed labour camps, one each at Husri, Zeal Pak 1 and 2, Odero Lal, Qadir Nagar Qalandarabad, Baba Salahuddin and Sikandarbad, were being cared for by the NRSP, where micro-credit, skilled training as well as health and education facilities provided.