More migrants falling sick at metro site thanks to lack of safety measures

Child laborers make up 30% of affected workers

The government is employing migrant children as part of the construction project.

By Rupsa Chakraborty

BANGALORE (Jan. 12)—The Karnataka government’s negligence toward health schemes for migrants working on Namma Metro construction can be blamed for a 55 percent rise in respiratory problems among them since 2009.

Every month the Victoria Hospital, at K.R. Market, registers a minimum of 30 to 45 cases of migrant metro workers complaining of respiratory problems.

Madhusudan Das, a medical information officer at the hospital, said this is mainly due to their constant exposure to polluted metro construction sites.

“Cases like allergies, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases among the migrant workers have increased gradually in the past two years,” Madhusudan said. “It is because of the long-term exposure to air pollutants during their working hours.”

“The metro workers are continuously exposed to three of the most dangerous air component—carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide that leads to respiratory irritation, bronchitis and infections,” said P. Kumar, a cardiologist at Victoria Hospital.

Migrant workers at the metro construction work in dangerous conditions without safety equipment.

“Thirty percent of the cases we get are that of children. Their breathing system gets easily affected by the poisonous pollutants in the air,” Kumar added.

“For the past two years I have been suffering from asthma,” said Nitai Das, a migrant from West Bengal. “When I consulted a doctor, he asked me to stop working as the pollutants are affecting my breathing system. But how can I stop working?”

 Rajan Podder, another worker at the metro construction site, is just 12 years old. He neither smokes nor drinks, but still suffers from acute breathing problems.

“Unlike the construction workers and traffic inspectors, we are not provided with facemasks,” said Sanjay Kumar Bhera, another metro worker.

When Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) was asked for a reason for their negligence, the corporation refused to provide The SoftCopy with much information.

“We do not provide any pollution safety guards to the metro workers. We are not responsible for it—the Labor Department is,” said Sri. B.L.Y. Chavan, chief public relations officer at BMRCL.

Karnataka Labor Department accepted that the government doesn’t have any health scheme for the migrant workers and there is nothing much it can do as the migrant laborers work unofficially.

Migrant workers are not registered and so are not entitled to any health benefits.

“These migrant workers are unregistered under the labor department so it’s impossible to provide any kind of health scheme or facilities to them,” said M. S. Ravishankar, labor commissioner at the Labor Department.

The negligence towards these migrant workers has led to their ill-health, and no one really seems to be doing anything about it.

What is alarming is 30 percent of the affected people are children.
“We mainly recruit child workers from the neighboring states like West Bengal, Orissa, UP, Andhra Pradesh because they are cheaper and less demanding”, said Ramesh Rao, a local contractor of Namma Metro.

As long as cheap labor is handy, no one seems to be bothered.