No headway in hospital for beedi workers

SAMBALPUR: For a pittance, they work from dawn to dusk, engaged in a mechanical and potentially life-threatening occupation of beedi rolling. The health hazards they face include respiratory disorder, back pain from long hours of sitting and skin disease which go unchecked in the absence of a hospital for them.Resentment is brewing among three lakh-odd beedi workers of Sambalpur district, whose demand for a 50-bed hospital is yet to materialise.Labour welfare refers to all such services, amenities and facilities to the employees that improve their working conditions as well as standard of living. Though hospitals for beedi workers have been opened across the country, the district continues to be ignored and the State Government is doing little in this regard.The Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1976, was enacted to finance the measures which promote welfare of persons engaged in beedi industries. Though Sambalpur is one of the major hubs in beedi manufacturing, the  workers continue to be deprived of medical aid, creches, canteens, clean drinking water, health services, uniforms and protective clothing besides rest shelters as promised under the Act.The beedi workers have long been demanding a 50-bed hospital in Rengali. Its majority residents are displaced by Hiraklud Dam project. Hospitals are being built at other places by the Labour  Welfare Organisation while the demand of the district is  ignored, alleged a labour leader.Informing that a proposal for establishment of a hospital at Rengali  has been pending since 2002, Sambalpur District Beedi Shramik Union general secretary Mitrabhanu Podh said even the district administration has earmarked 20 acres of land in Rengali for the purpose. He said though paperwork reflects that a financial sanction of ` 87 lakh had also been made for boundary wall, the project seems to be moving at a snail’s pace due to government’s apathy.Explaining that such a hospital is the need of the hour as most of the beedi workers live with respiratory problem and cannot afford treatment at big hospitals, Podh threatened to launch a stir next month in front of the office of the Welfare Cess Commissioner, Labour and Beedi Welfare, in Bhubaneswar over the demand.