Hon'ble CM of Bihar!
Sir,Let us pray that with sincere efforts being made by the Govt. of Bihar there
is no one like Jawahar Manjhi remaining exploited. News item on the subject is
being reproduces for kind attention please.
Indian endures 27 years labour for 40kg rice Reuters | Wednesday, 28 March
2007

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dailynews/4007669a12.html
NEW DELHI: A villager in eastern India has been repaying a loan of 40 kg of
rice with 27 years of bonded labour, a newspaper reported.

Jawahar Manjhi, from the impoverished state of Bihar, took the rice from a
lender for a family wedding in exchange for him working in the lender's field.
It was agreed Manjhi, 45, would pay off one kg of rice for each day he worked.
But since then, Manjhi has taken more loans of rice and now has no idea how much
he has repaid.
"Originally the loan was about 40 kg," Manjhi was quoted as saying in the Times
of India. "Twenty-seven years on, I don't know how much have I repaid and how
much more I owe the lender."
Living in a one-room mud house with his wife and four children, the poor
labourer says he has no idea how the interest on the rice loan was calculated
and does not know how he will repay the entire loan in one lifetime.
He was told he would be freed from his bond if he paid 5000 rupees ($NZ161) – an
amount far beyond his reach.
Manjhi said there were "many more like me" in the area, but Bihar's labour
minister told the newspaper that the government was not aware of any bonded
labour in Bihar.
According to the government, around 20 per cent of India's billion-plus
population live below the poverty line and while strong economic growth has made
millions in the cities richer, it has bypassed many people living in rural
areas.
In recent years, there has been a spate of suicides by poverty-stricken farmers
unable to repay loans borrowed from village moneylenders at interest rates as
high as 60 per cent a month.


Lt. Col. (Retd.) Bajrang Bihari Singh
Sec-5, Plot - 452
Vaishali, Ghaziabad
U.P.
Phone- 0120-2772949

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