SHILLONG, Feb 24: About 170 unregistered labourers were sent back to the Assam border on Thursday after members of the Shillong Mihngi Circle of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) found them working on the permanent campus of the IIM at Umsawli without any work permit.
The Labour department issues the work permits.
The district administration along with the police intervened after learning that the KSU members had gone to check the labourers on the IIM campus in the New Shillong Township. The unregistered labourers of SOM Project Private Limited were then packed off to Khanapara in four buses and two SUVs.
The KSU circle’s general secretary, Raymond Kharjana said the union members carry out such checking from time to time if they receive information about the presence of a large number of labourers from outside the state in any location.
“We will continue to carry out similar checks in various parts of Khasi and Jaintia Hills. We are really concerned about the presence of such a large number of migrant labourers without work permits,” he said.
He said they were shocked to see many labourers who had brought their families along with them. “This is a dangerous trend since no one knows the antecedents of these labourers,” he added.
“We will implement our own ILP since the Centre is adamant (about ignoring) our demand to implement Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act (BEFR), 1873,” Kharjana said.
He wondered how the authority concerned did not detect the presence of these labourers inside the IIM permanent campus.
An official from the IIM said the management has been reminding the contractors and the project-implementing firm to ensure that all the labourers are registered.
“It is the responsibility of the contractors and the firm to register these labourers,” an official said.