{"id":89191,"date":"2024-07-06T18:26:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T18:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/06\/little-hands-at-the-liquor-still-how-children-were-reportedly-made-to-work-making-and-bottling-liquor-in-a-factory-in-mp\/"},"modified":"2024-07-06T18:26:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T18:26:12","slug":"little-hands-at-the-liquor-still-how-children-were-reportedly-made-to-work-making-and-bottling-liquor-in-a-factory-in-mp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/06\/little-hands-at-the-liquor-still-how-children-were-reportedly-made-to-work-making-and-bottling-liquor-in-a-factory-in-mp\/","title":{"rendered":"Little hands at the liquor still: How children were reportedly made to work making and bottling liquor in a factory in MP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s nauseating at first… the stench. But in a day or two, you get used to it,\u201d says 14-year-old Vineet Nayak in hushed tones. The young boy (whose name has been changed on request) has been filling country liquor in quartersized bottles at a plant of Som Distilleries<\/a> at Sehatganj village in Raisen, Madhya Pradesh<\/a>. He calls his work \u201cpauwa jamana\u201d\u2014 setting the bottles upright so that alcohol falls into them. He did that for nine hours a day.<\/p>\n

Wearing jeans and tee shirt, Vineet sits with a slight stoop at his home. He says he dropped out of school. Instead of going to class, the thin boy would reach the distillery<\/a> at 8 am and work till 5 pm. After a long day of strenuous, hazardous work, he would go home with Rs 350. He saw the hands of his friends had turned white, the skin had peeled. \u201cIt could have been the chemicals,\u201d he says. He worked there only for a fortnight. Before he had to spend more days in that reeking plant, before his hands too got scalded, he was rescued.<\/p>\n

On June 15, a team of officials of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR<\/a>) and Bachpan Bachao Andolan<\/a> (BBA), a nonprofit founded by Kailash Satyarthi<\/a>, rescued 59 children\u201439 boys and 20 girls\u2014from the distillery, in the biggest busting of child labour<\/a> racket in the liquor industry in the past several years. About 40 other children \u201cescaped\u201d during the raid, according to officials at the rescue operation.<\/p>\n

Almost 100 children, aged between 12 and 17 years, were allegedly employed by country-liquor maker Som Distilleries at its Raisen plant. The company is part of the Som Group that also owns the listed entity Som Distilleries and Breweries, which is among the 10 biggest distillers in India and the largest in Madhya Pradesh. For years, the children were allegedly brought into the factory in school buses. To hide the fact that they were working there, they were made to wear uniforms of a school that Som runs on the premises, says an NCPCR official. The kids were making, bottling and packaging liquor for up to 12 hours for daily wages of Rs 300-500.<\/p>\n

According to documents from the state excise and labour departments that ET has seen, the skin on the hands of several children were burnt, infected, or melting away due to constant contact with raw spirits and chemicals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Som has done is a crime of child labour, exploitation<\/a> of children, cruelty to children, keeping children in bonded labour<\/a>. These are serious crimes,\u201d says Bhuwan Ribhu, lawyer, child rights activist and former general secretary of BBA. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 prohibits children below 14 years from being employed in hazardous occupations.After the raid, Madhya Pradesh\u2019s excise department suspended Som\u2019s liquor licence for 20 days. However, on Tuesday, Som got a stay order from the high court and resumed operations at its distillery.<\/p>\n

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CHILDREN AT WORK<\/strong>
Young Vineet lives with his father, four sisters and grandparents at the village of Gopisur, 25 km from Bhopal. His mother died last year. The distillery is about 5 km from his home. His father, Ketan Nayak, is a farmer. He says he did not know his son had been working in the distillery. \u201cI had gone to Rajasthan for some work when he started working. I wouldn\u2019t have allowed him to work in a liquor factory<\/a>. We are well-off,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Unlike Ketan Nayak, Jaswant Singh says he knew his daughter Hemlata was working in the factory. \u201cWe have to earn money. Why would I stop her?\u201d he asks. Hemlata now helps her father in the fields.<\/p>\n

Sapna Nath, 16, too worked in the plant. She lives in a dilapidated brick house at Sehatganj with her mother. Her two brothers work in farms but, her mother says, it is Sapna who runs the house. She stuck hologram stickers on bottle caps for 10 hours a day at the distillery\u2014for Rs 300. Sapna rues that she has lost her job and pay. \u201cAaraam ka kaam tha (It was easy work),\u201d she says. The officials asked us why we were working there, she recalls. \u201cDidn\u2019t we know this was illegal, they asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will she go back to working at the distillery? \u201cHow can she go now? We have been told that if the children are sent to work there, the parents will be sent to jail,\u201d says her mother.<\/p>\n

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RAISING THE ALARM<\/strong>
Alarm bells have been ringing for a while. Earlier this year, an official at Raisen\u2019s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) spotted a child being sneaked into the factory. \u201cWe had been receiving information from villagers who suspected that children were being taken to the factory in school buses at odd hours,\u201d says Atul Krishna Dubey, chairman of CWC, Raisen.<\/p>\n

On March 19, Dubey and some officials from the state labour department went inside the distillery. \u201cWithin 15 minutes, we found two kids working there,\u201d he says. Dubey informed the local police. When the police checked, company officials told them that the children were merely bringing lunch for their parents who were employed at the distillery. The matter wasn\u2019t pursued.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Delhi, BBA director Manish Sharma and his team were doggedly following the goings-on at the distillery for more than a year. A small team was stationed at Raisen to monitor the factory round the clock and track the movement of children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gauged that about 100 kids were employed in the distillery. I wrote to NCPCR. Its team came to inspect the premises on June 15,\u201d says Sharma. \u201cWhen we entered the plant, there was such a terrible stench of chemicals and spirits that it was difficult for us to remain there for even 10 minutes. It\u2019s unbelievable that kids aged 12-15 years were made to work there for 12 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found little girls wearing heavy makeup. They said they were asked to deck up, possibly to make them look older,\u201d says Sharma.<\/p>\n

He alleges that he faced significant resistance from the company\u2019s workers: \u201cThey are extremely guarded. Even if you stand for more than half an hour at a roadside dhaba opposite the distillery, the guards would come and question you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Som Distilleries denied this in an emailed response to ET. An executive from its compliance team said the company \u201cwas very open to investigation and co-operated fully with all the authorities\u201d. A spokesperson said Som runs a school with 500 students on the distillery premises as part of its \u201csocial initiative\u201d.<\/p>\n

The number of child labourers in the country is staggering. As part of its pledged support to the UN\u2019s sustainable development goals, India has to eliminate child labour by 2025. However, there were an estimated 7.8 million child labourers in 2023, according to the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation. Most of them are employed in textile and automobile industries, construction sector and agriculture. Cases of child labour have been rare in the highly regulated liquor industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not come across a case like this in my entire career,\u201d says Priyank Kanoongo, chairman, NCPCR. He has filed an FIR against the company and a case in the Madhya Pradesh High Court. \u201cWe will ensure the conviction of the perpetrators,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Kanoongo blames the district collectorate at Raisen for ignoring child labour at the distillery. Raisen\u2019s district magistrate Arvind Dubey did not respond to calls and messages from ET.<\/p>\n

The Raisen incident, a stark tale of exploitation and poverty, also points to alleged complicity of officials. An excise duty official has to be present at all liquor factories and distilleries. Som did, too. Abhijit Agrawal, excise commissioner, Madhya Pradesh, says, \u201cWe have taken initial action by suspending the official and other subordinate staff posted there. Since they were working there it was their clear moral responsibility (to flag child labour in the distillery).\u201d He adds that Som has flouted norms earlier as well: \u201cA case was related to irregularities in supply chain. The company\u2019s directors were found guilty along with certain department officials. In another case, which was closed some years ago, the company had installed tanks without permission from the government or the department, and notices were issued.\u201d In its response to ET, Som denied there were irregularities in its supply chain or that it set up tanks without approval.<\/p>\n

In its replies to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the capital markets regulator, Som Distilleries and Breweries Ltd (SDBL) has distanced itself from Som Distilleries Private Ltd (SDPL), which it calls \u201ca vendor\u201d. SDPL is a promoter company and owns 9.28% in SDBL, according to the latest data from the Bombay Stock Exchange. SDBL buys raw liquor or extra neutral alcohol (ENA) from SDPL and, according to its latest annual report, is \u201cable to exercise significant control\u201d of the company.<\/p>\n

In response to queries from ET, SDBL says it has \u201cterminated the services of the vendor (SDPL)\u201d, suspended key functionaries of its HR department and \u201cgiven a warning\u201d to the general manager of the plant. Meanwhile, what happens to the children? The rescued children should get a compensation of Rs 20,000 each under the Child Labour Act, says Ribhu. For children below 14 years of age, one adult member from their family should get alternative employment. \u201cUnder Section 370A, this is a crime of exploitation and trafficking. Criminal prosecution would result in a compensation of at least Rs 3 lakh under the National Legal Service Authority scheme of victim compensation,\u201d he adds. Apart from that, a child is entitled to a compensation of up to Rs 3 lakh under the central sector scheme of bonded labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been told that we would get Rs 35,000. But we have no Aadhaar card nor bank passbook,\u201d says Sapna\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Kanoongo says the district collector should enrol every child for Aadhaar and open bank accounts in their name so that compensation and back wages (calculated according to rules under the bonded labour scheme and the child labour prohibition fund) can be deposited in that account.<\/p>\n

Three weeks after the raid, Vishal says he has got a message from SBI that Rs 15,000 has been deposited in his account. However, the children will not be able to access the money before they turn 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat good is that? We need the money now,\u201d says Sapna\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Children should also be given trauma care and counselling. Dubey of Raisen\u2019s CWC says he and his team are still collating social investigation reports of the kids.<\/p>\n

They should also go back to school. Vishal is again making his way to the plant\u2014not to work this time, but to study in the school on its premises.
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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It\u2019s nauseating at first… the stench. But in a day or two, you get used to it,\u201d says 14-year-old Vineet Nayak in hushed tones. The young boy (whose name has been changed on request) has been filling country liquor in quartersized bottles at a plant of Som Distilleries at Sehatganj village in Raisen, Madhya Pradesh. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-42031747\/et-logo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[77055,77057,8381,70387,1388,77058,77054,2263,5128,77056,10182,77052,7980,1844,57778,6128,77053,1396],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89193,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89191\/revisions\/89193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}