Between a rock and a hard life

Stone crushers in Sargodha complain the govt has failed to provide them with any security or facilities.

SARGODHA: Stone crushers in the district have complained that the government has failed to provide them with any security or facilities to help them carry out their work. They said that they worked extremely hard, spending their days turning massive boulders of rock into pebbles for construction purposes.

Workers at a stone crushing market near Sargodha bridge-11 said that they were considering taking out a protest against the government’s apathy regarding their working conditions and wages.

“We spend the entire day from Fajr prayers to Isha at the factory. First we crush the stone and at night it takes us a few hours to hurl the crushed stones into piles so they can be removed the next day,” said worker Imran.

The labourers work tirelessly but the lease holder and the government have yet to provide them with any safety facilities. “This is dangerous work and people get injured nearly on a daily basis,” said forty-year-old Sanaullah Khan, who has been working as a stone crusher for the past 25 years.

“When the hill was auctioned the lease holder was asked to write down facilities for the workers. The list included a dispensary, school and ambulance and the lease holder signed it several times but no such facilities have ever been provided to us,” Khan said. Ali Hasan, the father of Ali Hasnain, a resident of 110-South died six months ago while working on a hill but the lease holder for the factory refused to pay Rs200,000 insurance. Hasan’s family has still not been paid the government aid owed to them and were forced to vacate their home in the area because they could no longer afford it.

“We all campaigned on Hasan’s behalf and visited the lease owner several times but the money has not been provided. The government has also announced to provide Rs300,000 for our insurance but the money is nowhere to be seen,” Imran said, adding that stone crushers regularly received injuries and developed eye sight problems but they were never compensated.

The government Mines and Minerals Department was formed to safeguard the rights of stone crushers but the department – according to workers- has failed to secure even basic needs for the workers in the district factories.

Mines inspector for the Sargodha region, Chaudhery Khaliqur Rehman said that only the assistant commissioner for welfare has the authority to award the death grant to workers. “It is the welfare commissioner’s job to prepare a case and send it to the board,” he said, adding that the funds are only allocated after they have been approved by the board.

These mountains which are a major source of earning for the labourers often lead to serious injuries for those working as stone crushers. “We have no problem doing this work and it is hard work but we want to ensure that our families will be taken care of in the case of something happening to us,” said Sanaullah.

These labourers are forced to work hard to earn a living for their families and to service the countries construction industry.

The workers said that the least they deserved for their work was the insurance that their lives were not ‘worthless’.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2010.