Posters advertising a bus service from Kandhamal to Kerala for migrant labourers contradict the Odisha government’s claim of massive job generation in the state.

Majhi’s government has often bragged of drastically reducing the scale of labour migration from the state. The recent Utkarsh Odisha (Make in Odisha) Conclave saw the government making tall claims about skill development and local employment generation with focus on the youth to contain their migration outside the state.

The posters appearing in areas like Raikia, Daringbadi and other parts of the Kandhamal district read, “Bus will ply from Raikia to Kerala every Friday — contact”. The posters have been stuck on trunks of the trees in many pockets of Kandhamal.

The advertisement appearing for the bus service to Kerala is something few people in the area would be able to resist. Most of the buses run from Raikia to Ernakulam in Kerala. From there, labourers fan out to different locations in Kerala. The bus will only start after all its 50 seats get filled up.

“The buses appear to be comfortable, and the fare is likely to be paid by the labour tout. The price of the ticket is between ₹3000 to ₹4000, depending on the availability of seats. Labourer tours visit the villages frequently to employ labourers by paying an advance. Most of the time, the journey is painful and accident-prone. Every year, thousands of people from different age groups undertake the arduous journey to states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujrat, Maharashtra and Haryana and Delhi in search of jobs” Dinabandhu Maharana, a local from Kandhamal said.

One of the youths, Nirmal Samal, 25, who worked at a textile factory, said, “I used to get ₹20,000 per month. My wife also works there. She also gets a salary of ₹20,000. We had to move out as we did not get a job here.”

District labour officer, Kandhamal, Biswa Ranjan Kanhar told The Telegraph, “We have sent a team to Raikia to inquire into the issue. We always request people to inform the district administration before leaving the district. We have already launched a number of awareness programmes to this effect.”

On being asked how many people move out from Kandhamal every year, Kanhar expressed his helplessness: “As people don’t inform us before leaving, we don’t have exact figures.”

What is more interesting is that the district does not have a single licensed contractor, but every week, hundreds of people move out of the state by buses and pick-up trains from Berhampur, which is about 100km from Kandhamal, but the districtadministration fails to get a hint of it.

Leading social activist Biswa Priya Kanungo said, “Successive governments have been making tall claims about addressing the problem of migration and putting an end to woes of the poor people living in Odisha’s hinterland. However, the very fact that the scale of labour migration continues to grow makes it clear that the official claims are hollow and the government schemes have fallen flat.”

As per the official sources, an estimated 1.75 million people migrated from Odisha to other states in 2023. All of them moved out of the state either due to distress or desperation.

Officials said in order to look into the issue of distress migration, the state government has constituted a committee under the deputy chief minister and agriculture and farmers’ empowerment minister K. V. Singh Deo. Poor people migrate to states where they mostly work in brick kilns. Many go to Surat to work in textile mills.