Exploitation and Deprivation : A Socio-Legal Study on Inter-State Migrant Workmen/ Damodar Panda. 1997, xiii, 314 p., $16.
Contents: Preface. I. The context: 1. Introduction. 2. Historical background. 3. Labour migration in colonial times. II. The illusion and the reality: 4. Inter-state labour migration after independence. 5. The lure and deprivation. III. Recruitment and deployment in states: 6. In-migration and out-migration. 7. State of recruitment : Orissa. 8. State of recruitment : Madhya Pradesh. 9. States of deployment. IV. State intervention: 10. Legislation and lacunea. 11. Administrative frame. 12. Overview and remedies : conclusion. 13. Recommendations. Annexures. Bibliography. Glossary.
"India is identified as the largest developing country, next to China. A vast majority of its work force, estimated at 93% is employed in unorganised sector. Among them, migrant workmen of any type, whether intra-state or inter-state or even inter-country, whenever and wherever recruited through middlemen, are subjected to abuses and malpractices. The worst affected are those who, as per the recent legal terminology, are known as "inter-state migrant workmen". Taking advantage of their abject poverty, they are traded as commodities at recruitment bases, transported as consignments to destination points and treated like animals at places of deployment in recipient states. A class of middlemen, styled variously, as contractors, sardars, khatadars, maistries or mistries and mates, supply them as cheap labour, mainly to construction projects for back breaking manual work in inhuman conditions and in flagrant violation of the legally prescribed working hours, overtime rest days and wage payment. This study on the socio-legal aspects of these workmen, conducted during 1990-92 was, perhaps, the first of its kind and could be viewed as a modest beginning." (jacket)