Hopes alive for a brief passage

April 19, 2020 06:12 pm | Updated 06:12 pm IST

Mohiuddin (30), a daily wage labourer from Murshidabad in West Bengal, had been working at a construction site in a refinery for about four months. He was about to pack his bag and leave to see his newborn son, when the 21-day lockdown was imposed on March 25. Since then he and 30 others from the same district have been stranded and are living in a home near Gajuwaka.

Though they are grateful that a few voluntary organisations, a couple of PSUs and the GVMC have provided them food and accommodation, they are longing to go back to their families, who are in dire straits.

"There is shortage of money as well as milk for my newborn. Even my wife’s health is not very good and my aged parents cannot take care of my wife and child. They need me," says Mohiuddin.

"We favour the lockdown extension, but what we ask is a window period of two days after April 20 to allow us (migrants) to reach home," he says.

According to an official from the GVMC, the migrants who are stuck here are getting restless with every phone call that they are receiving from their home. "False messages in social media are also playing a trick on their mind," he says.

Over 20,000 present

Being the industrial hub of the State, it is estimated that over 20,000 migrant workers mainly from Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are stranded in different parts of the city.

"If the government can bring back those stranded outside the country, who are mostly from well-to-do families why can’t it do something for the poor workers?" asks CPI (M) State Secretariat member Ch. Narasinga Rao.

GVMC prepared

Meanwhile, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) that has started about 25 shelter homes in the city accommodating about 2,240 migrant workers and the destitute, is gearing up to handle the extension till May 3.

It is learnt that Municipal Commissioner G. Srijana has asked the officers running the shelter homes to brace for the extension and also better the facilities.

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