Train with migrant workers leaves for Odisha
KOCHI: The special train carrying stranded migrant workers from Odisha was scheduled to leave the state on Friday, according to reports.
The train, bound for Bhubaneswar in Odisha, was to leave Aluva railway station in Ernakulam district at 6:00pm.
The train will carry around 1,200 migrant labourers stranded in Kerala following the nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown, which was to end on Sunday.
The state Police Chief Loknath Behra said on Friday that necessary instructions have been given to ensure social distancing and other precautions at the boarding station.
“All arrangements for the return journey of the workers have been made. A police team headed by DYSP has been formed to make the workers aware that all of them will not be able to return on the first day. They will be taken in phases. Home Guard personnel and those from central forces who can handle the mother tongue of the workers would be entrusted with the task of enlisting their cooperation.
“All district police chiefs have been instructed to keep police force ready to meet any law and order issues that may crop up,” Behra said.
According to a 2018 state government report, Kerala has 350,000 guest workers, mainly from Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand. There are 360,000 workers in 20,826 camps in Kerala and 99 per cent of them, hailing from West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, want to return to their respective states, the chief minister had said the other day.
Though state government initiated supply of essential items to migrant labour camps across the state, a section of workers hit the streets the other day demanding arrangements for their return to home states.
On April 10, migrant labourers took out a protest march in Paippad village in Kottayam district, urging the government to arrange vehicles for their return. Violating lockdown norms, around 100 guest labourers from different states including Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, who are staying in a labour camp near Chattiparamba in Malappuram district took part in a protest rally. Malappuram police took several protesters into custody.
Thousands of migrants were stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was enforced on March 25. For the first time after the lockdown was declared a train carrying migrant workers left Lingampally in Telangana for Hatia Jharkhand at 5:00am on Friday.