Ensure transport to workers: HC

Guest workers not being registered for train travel to their native places: Petitioner

Telangana High Court on Friday directed the state government to make concerted efforts to ensure that guest workers reach their destinations, either by arranging transport or dropping them at railway stations and bus stands, where they will find transportation to reach their native places in a safe and sound manner.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy, heard an urgent petition moved as lunch motion by Professor Rama Shankarnarayan Melkote, who brought to notice of the court the plight of guest labour on borders of Telangana state, who stand abandoned after having been dropped there by police and state authorities, which had picked them up from various places in Hyderabad city.

The petitioner submitted that state authorities are not registering guest labour for travel by trains to reach their places.

Vashudha Nagaraj, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the state government and police are playing the drama of arranging transport for guest workers from Telangana state to their destinations, so as to prevent them from walking to reach their destinations. The state government and police are indeed picking up the guest labour in RTC and private buses. However, they were merely dropping them at Bhoraj check post in Adilabad district, the border of Telangana and Maharashtra.

“As there is no transport facility available and guest workers have no money to pay truck drivers for transporting them to their destinations in Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other places, guest workers are sitting at the check post. Some of them have also started walking to their places under the blazing sun, the counsel for the petitioner stated. She also submitted that she herself was witness to such conditions and had seen several guest workers walking on the Medchal highway to reach their native places, as they had not got any support from the government.

Advocate General B. S Prasad informed the court that only 20 guest workers from Chhattisgarh had been stranded after one of the private vehicle drivers dropped them at the border. Those persons have thereafter already reached their destinations with efforts made authorities. He also maintained that the government is arranging

food and water facilities at every 10 km on the road for guest labour, apart from arranging transport facilities.

The court directed the government to house all guest workers, who are

travelling on foot towards their native places, at marriage halls on the Medchal Highway and arrange transportation or drop them at railway stations or bus stations, so that they can reach their places.