I’m a bonded labourer with a car, says Varalakshmi, standing proudly beside her red hatchback. “Can you imagine?”
Varalakshmi, from Nochili village near Kannigapuram was once trapped in bonded labour for 15 years, until she was rescued in 2014. “For five years after I was rescued I survived as a daily wager but it’s only after I trained in block printing through Varnam did I manage to save enough to send my daughter to college and today live a life debt-free. And buy a car.”
Varalakshmi is one of the many beneficiaries of ‘Varnam’ (colour), a project designed for rescued bonded labourers by the Tiruvallur district administration in 2019, where they are taught block printing. “We now give training to rescued bonded labourers not just in Chennai but outside Tamil Nadu as well,” says an official.

What started as a small training programme now ensures financial independence for hundreds like Varalakshmi and T Kaliammal, who in 2003 was a bonded labourer at a rice mill in Tiruvallur, struggling to make ends meet. “I could not take care of my one-year-old daughter because I was working for long hours. One day, while playing alone in the mill, she fell into a water tank used for cleaning rice and died. That was the day I decided I would not put my other children in danger. I wanted to educate them so they would not have to live as bonded labourers,” says Kaliammal, who was among those rescued from Koovam village in Tiruvallur district. Her son Vinoth Kumar, she says, has studied catering and her daughter Monisha is in her final year of engineering. “It’s Varnam that helped me through,” she says.
The success of Varnam has been so significant that the district administration has now launched Varnam-II with a new group of beneficiaries.
The district administration arranged shelters for block printing and provided financial support to buy equipment. Beneficiaries now get orders from corporate companies and work on hand and tea towels, shirts, t-shirts, sarees and salwars based on demand.
Over the years, the Tiruvallur district administration has come to be known for its efforts in rehabilitating bonded labourers. One of its initiatives, Siragugal (‘wings’), successfully helped rescued bonded labourers set up brick kilns, later expanding into Siragugal-II.
“With Varnam, we were faced with a bigger challenge,” says C Vinoth, coordinator of the project and a member of the Rescued Bonded Labourers Association (RBLA). “Most bonded labourers had experience working in brick kilns, so transitioning to that was easy. But block printing was completely new to them.” To learn the craft, a team of bonded labourers trained in Jaipur. “But we switched from the more expensive kerosene-based printing to a more affordable water-based alternative,” says Vinoth.

Though ‘Varnam’ was successful, Covid-19 was a blow to them as they did not get any orders. “We had orders coming until the pandemic but now we are still reeling under the effects of Covid-19. When there were no orders, we had to work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Livelihood Scheme to support our families,” says P Shanmugam, a bonded labour rescued from a brick kiln at Katpadi in Vellore district.
During the pandemic, the rescued labourers learned new skills such as tailoring, bamboo crafts, tea coaster making and scented candle production. They continue to manufacture scented candles, supplying them to private companies in Chennai.
On account of the project’s success, Tiruvallur collector M Prathap has sanctioned land for constructing a dedicated workspace. Currently, they operate from a rented shed costing Rs 5,000 a month — roughly the salary of one worker in the project. “A new facility would allow them to save more and reinvest in their livelihoods,” says Vinoth.
How bonded labourers are rescued
It usually starts with a tip-off, say officials. Then a team of a revenue division officer, police and a labour inspector visits the spot. The RDO is the one authorised to make the final decision on whether they are bonded labourers. A police case is then filed and the labour department gives Rs 30,000 to every person rescued.