Government revamps scheme for rehabilitation of bonded labourers

The government has revamped the scheme for rehabilitation of bonded labourers, allowing a certain proportion of the fund dispersed per person to be put into annuity while raising the limit of immediate assistance from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. The revamped central sector scheme is effective from January 27, 2022.

Under the revamped scheme, there will be an option for Rs 1 lakh of rehabilitation assistance per adult male to either deposit it in an annuity scheme or receive cash grant. However, in case eof special category beneficiaries including children, orphans or women, at least Rs 1.25 lakh of the Rs 2 lakh rehabilitation assistance will be put into annuity and the balance transferred to the beneficiary account through direct benefit transfer.

Likewise, in case of bonded labourers involving extremes cases of deprivation such as trans-genders or sexually expolited women and children, at least RS 2 lakh of the total assiatnce of Rs 3 lakh will have to be put in the annuity scheme and the rest given to the beneficiary.


“The revised scheme shall be a central sector scheme and shall come into effect from January 27, 2022. The state government shall not be required to pay any matching contribution for the purpose of cash rehabilitation assistance,” the labour ministry said in a notification dated February 7, 2022.

Further, unde the revamped scheme an immediate financial assistance of Rs 30,000 shall be provided to the rescued person by the district administration.

The revamped scheme, however, has retained the financial assistance of Rs 4.50 lakh per district to the states for conducting survey of bonded labourers, Rs 10 lakh per state for awareness generation programme while enhancing the cost of evaluatory studies from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh.

The central government will continue to give 50% of the amount required for conducting survey, awareness generation and evaluatory studies in advance. While the survey will be conducted once in every three years per sensitive district and five evaluatory studies per year.

Bonded labour, also known as debt bondage or debt slavery is a person’s pledge of labour or services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services’ duration may be undefined. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.

As per the United Nations estimates, roughly 27 to 30 million individuals are currently caught in the slave trade industry and 84 to 88% of the bonded labourers in the world are in South Asia.