Dear Moderator,
Many thanks for accepting me a member of the group.
Being a journalist here goes the first message- a news story of mine printed
in the Statesman.
I am sure it will interest the members.
With very best wishes
Hemendra Narayan
..............
Rise in number of Dumka labourers in BRO projects
Hemendra Narayan
NEW DELHI, April 14: Bishram Oraon from Jharkhand, a Dumka labourer in Border
Roads Organisation (BRO) parlance, was lucky to have escaped with injuries in
Saturday mornings suicide attack in Afghanistan, while the attack left two
engineers dead and four others from BRO injured. The workers were working on a
project at Khasrod district in the southern Nimroz province of the
violence-torn country. Indians are engaged in the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram road
which is to be completed this year.
When in November 2005 Taliban rebels had abducted some workers and killed a BRO
driver from Kerala, there was a sense of relief in Jharkhand. For at that time
no Jharkhand worker had been employed by the Armys road construction company
to work in Afghanistan.
But this time Bishram had a providential escape. Over the years Jharkhand
labourers have built up extremely strong ties with BRO. Today even a causal
search of the BROs website for common surnames of Jharkhand tribals like
Soren, Oraon, Manjhi, Marandi or Murmu yields more than 200 names.
They may belong to different districts of Jharkhand but BRO collectively
(unofficially) designates them as Dumka labourers. Dumka is the headquarters
of the Santhal Paraganas districts.
These workers have done pioneering work in road construction whether it was the
Aizawl-Lunglie highway in Mizoram or in Tripura facing the Chittagong Hill
Tracts of Bangladesh. These labourers have worked on national highways
criss-crossing the hills of the north-east and also in Jammu and Kashmir.
Licensed contractors in Jharkhand pick up these labourers by organising camps.
They have at times been targets of militants resulting in casualties. While the
BRO provides much needed job opportunities to these tribals, it is also
preferred as it is a government body. They are hired after proper medical
examination in presence of representatives from the defence organisation. Those
hiried are told where the men would be working.
If there are areas in Kerala which thrive on money earned by BRO workers, the
scene is not greatly different in some villages of Santhal Parganas and Deoghar
districts in Jharkhand.
The BRO projects are generally in hostile and difficult environment, where
private companies are not willing to work, due to various factors including
security and harsh climate. No wonder the job takes a heavy toll. Lives have
been lost to militancy, natural calamity and road accidents. The BRO also has
projects in Tajikistan, Myanmar and Bhutan.
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ends
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