Andhra Pradesh: Good Samaritans do their bit to help migrant workers

Visakhapatnam/Vijayawada: Although the railways has been running special Shramik trains so that migrant labourers can reach home, many are still opting to walk. On an average more than 1,000 laboureres are passing through the district to reach their home towns in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Speaking to a few of them, it was found out that lack of information on train schedules and fear of being quarantined are two of the main reasons why many of them are choosing to walk than take the trains.

“More than 10,000 migrant workers passed through Visakhapatnam in the last 10 days either on foot or bicycles. We have seen many youth crossing the check post at the cricket stadium,” said one of the police constables. So far the district administration has arranged three special trains for migrant labourers, more trains would leave from the city in a few days.

“I had Rs 10,000 when the lockdown began. I started from Chennai on a new cycle, which I purchased soon after the first lockdown was over. Later, I met a group of people on the road who too were on their way to my native place in Bhadrak, Odisha,” said a construction worker SK Mahanti to TOI.

Given the situation, many NGOs and volunteers have hit the national highway to distribute food, shoes, umbrellas and even financial aid. People’s Service Organisation led by VV Ramana Murthy distributed bread and shoes to migrant labour at NAD Junction, R&B junction Simhachalam, Arilova and Sheelanagar.

Similarly members of the BSNL Retired Employees’ have been distributing food for the past 10 days. A businessman, Chalumuri Ramakrishna from Visakhapatnam, while coming from West Godavari in a car, distributed food and financial aid to migrant labour passing the national highway from Rajahmundry to Tuni.

“Even in the soaring mercury, they are walking. Everyone should help them. They only trying to reach home, ” Ramakrishna said.

Local theatre owner P Sambamurthy has been distributing tiffin, buttermilk, bananas, water bottles and others. He has even arranged for shelters so that the migrant labourers can halt and rest.

Meanwhile, following the directions of chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, officials of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and Krishna district administration began distributing food and water among the migrant labourers.

District collector A Mohammed Imtiaz, VMC commissioner Prasanna Venkatesh inspected the arrangements. “It is not an easy task to walk hundreds of kilometers during summer. We can understand the pain of migrant workers who are striving to reach their homes fast. We have arranged temporary halts at multiple locations and providing them food throughout the day. Our teams are, however, are have been trying to convince them to move to the nearby migrant workers’ shelters so that we can take them to their native village in special trains,” Venkatesh said.