Bhubaneswar, Jan 5: A National Level Workshop on elimination of Bonded Labour has been scheduled to be held here on January 12.
A preparatory meeting to this effect was held under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi in secretariat conference hall wherein Secretary Panchayati Raj Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh presented the workshop schedule for discussion.
It was decided to hold this one day workshop in the MGNREGS conference hall of State Institute of Rural Development. Chief Secretary advised to involve the civil society organization working in the area of bonded labor and the field level officers who are actually handling the situation at ground level. Padhi also asked the department to make the workshop focused and outcome oriented.
Further, the meeting decided to involve office bearers of the brick kiln, stone crushing and other related sectors employees associations in the workshop for getting first hand feed-back from them. The subject experts and research scholars would be invited to have academic and administrative interaction for elimination of the menace.
Open house discussions would be held on the issues raised by District Magistrates, Superintendents of Police, Sub-Divisional Magistrates and Labour Officers regarding identification and rehabilitation of the bonded labor.
AK Parasar Joint Registrar, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), present in the meeting, said that similar workshops are being organized in other States. The ultimate objective of the exercise is to gather realistic inputs for development of an effective rehabilitation policy at national level aimed at elimination of bonded labor.
It has been proposed to organize the Workshop in 4 sessions including one inaugural session and 3 technical sessions. The NHRC dignitaries the slated to address the workshop include Justice D. Murugesan, Member, Satya Narayan Mohanty Secretary General, Ranjit Singh, Joint Secretary, Damodar Sarangi , Special Rapporteur along with other senior officers.
The State dignitaries slated to address the workshop include Chief Secretary, Director General of Police, Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of the departments of Rural Development, ST & SC Development, School & Mass Education, Labour & Employees State Insurance, Panchayati Raj, Social Security & Empowerment of persons with Disability, Women & Child Development and Labour commissioner. The Collectors, Superintendents of Police, Sub-Collectors and Dist Labour Officers of Bolangir, Bargarh, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Nayagarh, Nuapada, Puri, Sonepur and Sundargarh have also been asked to participate in the workshop.
Besides, the Chairpersons of some of the Panchayat samities of Sundargarhm, Bolangir and Nuapada districts have also been slated to participate in the workshop.
Principal Secretary Home Asit Kumar Tripathy, Principal Secretary ST & SC Development Surendra Kumar, Principal Secretary Health & Family Welfare Arati Ahuja, Secretary W & CD Vishal Dev, Additional DG Crime Branch BK Sharma, Director Panchayati Raj Debendra Parasad Das along with senior officers from concerned departments participated in the meeting.
