Hundreds of migrant workers from different parts of the country on Tuesday began registering to travel back to their native places. Large crowds were witnessed at many police stations in the south zone where police officials made arrangements to help the workers with registration on an app custom-made for the purpose. As a large number of people turned up at the Mailardevpally police station, officials repurposed two function halls to process the number of workers.
Workers hailing from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Rajasthan, North East States, Haryana, Punjab, HP, Jammu & Kashmir were sent to Taj Function Hall while the papers of workers from Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat were processed at the Grant Function Hall.
“I have not been asked for any money. They checked my Aadhaar card, noted down my phone number, clicked a photograph and handed over a slip,” said Pappu, who works in a restaurant and has registered to travel to Keonjhar in Odisha.
If the ordeal appeared to end for some, it was in a balance for others. “We were caught near Balanagar on the way to Medchal and brought here. They are saying we will be sent in trains. We are waiting,” said Nanda Kishore, an AC mechanic from Brindavan Colony who wants to go home to Seoni in Madhya Pradesh.
“There are 15 of us. We are struggling to get food and water here. It will be good if we can go earlier,” said Mr. Kishore squatting on the ground with his friends under a tree just outside the police station building.
Police officials processing the registration kept the migrant workers in the loop about how the system will work. “We are collecting your details and accordingly, trains will be arranged. We will arrange buses from here to the railway station based on the information we get. You will get messages on your cellphone. You should not travel anywhere on your own,” said a police official to workers registering at the Farooqnagar bus depot.
Falaknuma police station used a bus depot while Kachiguda police officials had to use three sites to process the throngs of workers planning to go back home.
“We wanted to ensure social distancing. It would not be possible in one location so we are doing at the Kachiguda bus stand, Nimboliadda and Chappal Bazar,” informed a police official.
However, details of the trains being provided and timings remained hush-hush. “We don’t know when the trains will depart. Even they don’t know. We are providing security,” said a police official at the Kachiguda Railway Station where squares have been drawn on the flooring for passengers to observe social distancing norms.
