Jammu Tawi, Sept 17, (KIP)
Lodging a strong objection on preferring Rohingya over local labourers for execution of work in various state managed projects, several labour suppliers have warned of consequence if the practice was not abandoned forthwith. According to reports several Kashmiri contractors who had been awarded construction works by Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) have engaged Burmese (Rohingya) labourers and replaced local labourers in the ongoing work of digging and laying down of pipes in several interior parts of Jammu. A rough estimate suggests that over 100 Rohingya labourers are currently working at different construction sites in the capital city.
The job involved burying of underground conduit pipes for city's major sewerage plant coming up at Bhagwati Nagar area Assad ud Din, a Rohingya labourer who is laying sewerage pipes said that they were hired for this work through a middleman of the contractor who disburses money to them at the end of the day. They work on daily wage basis and are being paid somewhere between rupees 250 and 300 per day. The local labourer, however, charges anything between rupees 400 and 500 at the end of the day's work.. This has caused dissatisfaction among the local coolies who had been earlier hired by both government and private contractors in the state owned projects across Jammu and Kashmir. Several Jammu based political parties have been demanding deportation of Rohingyas to their respective country, Myanamar and to the contrary and public outrage, the state agencies are hiring these people as labourers which is affecting the livelihood of locals, said Rehmat Khan, a labourer from Ramban district.
