Eight migrant labourers from Odisha died in a road accident near Raipur in Chhattisgarh early on Saturday. The workers were on their way to Surat for work in textile industries.
The victims were among a group of 67 workers from Ganjam district who were returning to work in Gujarat after months of being idle after having returned to Odisha due to the COVID-19 lockdown. A Surat-based employer is said to have sent a bus to transport the skilled workers back to his textile units.
The accident took place when the bus was trying to overtake another vehicle. While seven men died on the spot, one died later in hospital. As many as 59 labourers were safe and under care of the Raipur administration.
CM announces relief
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed deep grief at the death of the workers from his home district of Ganjam and announced an ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh each to the families of the deceased from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. He also said the State would bear the cost of treatment of the injured.
Odisha’s Labour Minister Sushant Singh has been sent to Raipur to coordinate with the Chhattisgarh authorities on medical care for the injured and to oversee the return of the victims’ bodies to their respective villages.
Director General of Police Abhay also got in touch with his counterpart in Chhattisgarh to ensure that the injured did not face any problems. An Odisha police team led by Sub Divisional Police Officer of Padampur rushed to Raipur for assistance.
Back to work
Following the pandemic-induced lockdown in March, over four lakh people, most of them migrant workers employed in Gujarat, returned to Ganjam. More than two lakh people from the district are employed in the apparel industries of Surat alone.
Towards the end of May and early June, the workers began receiving calls to return from their employers through labour agents. In July, employers started sending buses to transport workers back. The labourers, too, had by then run out of savings and were unable to support their families without a source of income.
By August, the frequency of buses from Surat to ferry workers back to the textile units rose dramatically.
The migration of workers to brick kilns and apparel units from the western districts of Odisha has also begun. In the absence of passenger train services, employers from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have also sent dozens of buses to ferry workers back to small and medium industries.
