Child labour under Dispur's nose!

DIMORIA, March 10: Say no to child labour and yes to quality education continues to remain a slogan losing touch with reality in Assam. A telltale proof of this is a brick kiln in the Domoria area in Kamrup(M) district – under Dispur Legislative Assembly Constituency (LAC).         

A number of children have been working as labourers in RBC, a brick kiln located at Digaru-Kurkuria under Sopur Revenuce Circle in the Dimoria area, under the very nose of those at the helm of affairs to keep an eye on such crimes. The children, according to allegations by the local people, are denied their childhood liberty like getting compulsory and proper education and playing. 

This is not the only violation of rules by RBC Brick Kiln’s owner Rajesh Prasad. According to standing rules, the owner of a brick kiln has to provide all means for quality primary education of the children of his/her workers. In the instant case, RBC Brick Kiln has opened a school that has no furniture and other educatiol infrastructure. Since there are no desks and benches students attend class by sitting on hay spread on the floor. How notorious is inhalation of hay dusts or mold spores or other agricultural products for children need no explation. 

The condition of the quarters for labourers of the brick kiln provided by its owners is no different. They are not so much quarters as cowsheds. Both children and their labourer parents have been kept under an unhygienic condition by the brick kiln owner, the people of the locality alleged.

Talking to this reporter, Boro-Kachari Yuba-Chatra Parishad, Dimoria president Jiten Mohilary said: “The labourers engaged in the brick kiln also dig earth to meet the requirement of the kiln. In what can be called as blithe disregard to standing rules, the brick kiln digs earth from a spot very close to the Digaru River. This is not all. The brick kiln has long been desecrating ture’s mosaic in the area like Banhtola Beel, a historic wetland famous for mass fishing in the area. This is not all. It keeps indenting the area of Song Beel, another wetland in the area.”

Taking all such violations into account, the local people appeal to Dispur to take action against the owner of the brick kiln. The request from the local populace is laden with a soft but clear threat that ‘they will have to start a vigorous agitation in the event of the administration turning on a deaf ear to their plea’.