Gaya: The rescue of 62 bonded labourers from a brick kiln in Gurpa police station area of the district and the shocking revelation about the practice being followed for the last 30 years, according to a press release issued by the district administration on Tuesday, has left many questions unanswered.Domain experts wondered how this illegal practice could go on for three decades without anybody ever noticing it all these years. The number of affected persons (62) is too significant to be ignored, they said.The revelation becomes all the more shocking as ground-level agencies, including chowkidar, panchayat-level revenue clerk (karamchari), booth level officer (BLO), census staff, offices of the BDO and the CO and local police, could not notice this anomaly even once.The BLO must have approached the bonded workers during the special intensive revision of the electoral roll only a few months back. The BLO, a govt servant, is supposed to personally know everybody in his/her area. Likewise the karamchari and panchayat sevak are present in every panchayat of the block, said domain experts.Earlier there were caste and general censuses in 2001 and 2011 respectively and at no stage this anomaly could be detected, they wondered. Accountability has to be fixed as to how this could go on for years without ever being noticed, said former MLA Satish Das. Either it is a case of dereliction of duty or connivance of local-level officials, said the former MLA. And where is the guarantee that such practice was not going on in the other brick kilns of the district, asked Das. Human audit of all brick kilns was needed, he said.There are more than 450 brick kiln units operating in the district.When contacted, Fatehpur BDO S B Sahu said monitoring brick kilns was not the part of his job and it was for the labour department to explain how it went on for so long. He just accompanied the raiding party on Tuesday, said the BDO.Shiv Nandan Kumar, SHO of Gurpa police station, while admitting that the local police were not aware of the bonded labour issue said the illegal practice, as per his findings after the raid, had been going on only for the last 10-12 years and not 30 years as mentioned in the press release issued by the district administration.Conceding the seriousness of the matter and the apparent lapse on the part of local officials Gaya district magistrate Shashank Shubhankar said an in-depth inquiry will be conducted to fix responsibility. “Strict action will be taken against the guilty officials. Other brick kiln units too have come under the scanner,” he said.
