Firms make efforts to bring back migrants, restart work

CLOSE TO 10 MILLION WORKERS WERE SENT BACK TO THEIR HOMES ON SHRAMIK SPECIAL TRAINS THAT STARTED PLYING FROM MAY 1

HYDERABAD/LUCKNOW: Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), a Hyderabad-based construction company, has brought back about 1,000 workers, who had returned to their villages in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh during the lockdown enforced on March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The builder paid the workers’ train fare to resume construction work on the Polavaram multipurpose project on the Godavari river in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district, company officials said on Tuesday. Some 1,800 more workers will be brought back soon, they said.

Over 3,000 migrant workers had left the company and returned to their home states in the exodus of workers that followed the lockdown, MEIL general manager Satish Angana said.

Angana said all the returnees had been tested at special medical camps for Covid-19 and before returning to work.

As the central and state governments battle to revive a stalled national economy and restart industrial activity, companies like Megha Engineering are being proactive in bringing back workers who had returned to their home states fearing a loss of work and wages.The Centre informed the Supreme Court last week that close to 10 million workers had been sent back to their homes on Shramik Special trains that started from May 1.

Employers need the workers, especially the skilled ones, to restart work, and haven’t stinted from offering them higher wages, better working conditions and paying their train -- even flight -fares to bring them back.

The trend, backed by anecdotal evidence of workers returning to cities like Mumbai, illustrates, too, the vital role played by migrant labour from states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal in keeping the economy running in economically better-off states in southern and western India.

Bangalore-based real estate developer Prestige Group has flown 10 carpenters from Patna to Hyderabad where it has launched a big real estate project.

Bobby Jindal, owner of Balaji Processors, a blanket maker based in Punjab’s Ludhiana, brought back seven of his master craftsmen by flights from Patna. “I was left with less than 50 workers at my unit which adversely affected production. I booked air tickets for seven master workers who took a flight from Patna to Delhi and then from Delhi to Sahnewal Airport in Ludhiana last week,” Jindal said, adding that he had also arranged two taxis and booked train tickets for some other workers who left Balaji Processors. “I have spent ₹2 lakh on bringing 50 workers back in the last few days.”

In Rajasthan, from where workers go to other states looking for work, some industry owners have offered to arrange transport for workers to return.

Sunil Jain, president of the Rajasthan chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), said the real estate and construction sector had been hit with a 30 to 40% shortage of workers because of the exodus. “I know of some real estate firms that are trying to get labourers back through contractors. Contractors are in touch with the workers and are convincing them to return, assuring them that they will get full work and wages. A few have even sent vehicles to ferry workers back and promised higher wages,” he said.

To revive industrial production in the state, the Punjab government last week sent two buses to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to ferry workers. The Rajasthan government has offered to help industry in getting workers back from other states, provided employers bear the costs.