About 12 lakh to 15 lakh people migrate within Maharashtra, from dry Marathwada to western Maharashtra’s Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur, and Ahmednagar — also known as the sugar belt.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI
The Bombay High Court took suo motu cognisance of an article by The Hindu on the financial and sexual exploitation of Maharashtra’s migrant workers in the State’s sugar belt.
An article titled, “Sugar-belt shocker. The financial and sexual abuse of Maharashtra’s migrant workforce”, deals with the plight of the migrant workers from the drought-affected areas of the Marathwada region. They are required to migrate to the sugar belt of the State — western Maharashtra’s Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur and Ahmednagar.
Flooding of homes
The court called the article “disturbing” and took note that about 70% of 500-odd villages in Beed, Osmanabad, Jalna, Latur and some parts of Nanded and Parbhani districts are emptied every winter. The tolis, a group of workers, either stay on the sugarcane factory premises or in the sugarcane fields. Families move into temporary structures that provide little shelter as winter turns to summer and then the rains arrive, flooding their makeshift homes.
Watch | The daily struggles of Maharashtra’s sugar-belt workers
“The plight of these workers is narrated qua financial exploitation and exploitation of lady workers also. The workers have also narrated the ordeals they have to undergo. The statements of such migrant workers are also part of the article,” the order read.
It was published on March 8 and on the same day, a Division Bench of acting justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep Marne took suo motu cognisance of the same. The Bench appointed senior advocate Mihir Desai to assist the court and directed advocate Pradnya Talekar to prepare a proper petition on the same. The matter is expected to be heard next week.