"Nothing really prepared us for where we would be working or the fact that it was so far from the nearest village. The work was strenuous, the shifts were 12 hours, and we were living in makeshift tents, says Alam. It was incredibly hot, and the contractor kept yelling at us for not working longer or harder, threatening us by saying that he would kill us and no one would even know we had disappeared. But the bigger problem was that he was not paying us on time or in full."
"Alam is one of thousands of young migrant workers who are signing up to work in the remote, salty marshland of Kutch district. Drawn largely from the hinterlands of Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, they arrive in their hundreds to work on the construction of solar projects, encouraged by contractors who promise good wages, facilities and steady employment. However, for many of the men, mostly in their 20s, the job is short-lived, as they say a complex chain of subcontracting results in long delays in payment."
A migrant worker from Bihar faced 12-hour shifts, makeshift tent accommodation, extreme heat, verbal threats and delayed or incomplete pay soon after joining a solar construction project in Kutch. Thousands of young men from Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh travel to the marshland for promised wages, facilities and steady work but encounter difficult living conditions and fractured contracting chains. Complex subcontracting often produces long payment delays and limited access to power and clean water. Many workers return home after a few months, losing wages and opportunities in a sector touted for green jobs. Labour officials say complaints have been acted upon and workers are encouraged to report wage theft.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]