Andhra Pradesh govt struggles to find jobs for returning workers

Visakhapatnam: With migrant workers returning to their homes in Andhra Pradesh in the hundreds, the state administration is now struggling to find work for them so that they can earn their daily bread. According to official sources, nearly 25,000 workers have returned to their home districts in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam over the last one month.

These workers, who were stranded in cities such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and Ahmedabad, returned home in Shramik special trains run from across the country. Many of the migrants who returned from high-risk areas have been sent on 14-day home quarantine. Others have been asked to quarantine at home.

“By June 1, a majority of these migrant returnees will complete their quarantine. Then these people will need jobs in order to sustain themselves. This is high time that all of us look to provide them employment, at least daily wage work,” said a senior government official,

Meanwhile, nearly 3,500 workers have been employed at the Srikakulam district department of water management agency (DWMA) project from April 14 till Thursday, informed project director H Kurma Rao. The project director further said that these workers have been employed under the centrally-sponsored National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

“Now, we are looking to find jobs for nearly 5,000 workers from the district in course of the lockdown. Each worker may get a daily wage of Rs 220 with six to seven hours of work under the NREGS,” Kurma Rao said while adding that the jobs under NREGS are being provided to workers willing to do unskilled work.

District collector of Vizianagaram, M Hari Jawaharlal said that the district administration has instructed departments to create jobs under various projects for eligible migrant returnees.

“There will be a division-level meeting on June 5 and June 6 to review all assigned tasks including the provision of employment,” he said.

Venkateswar Salijamala, the project officer of Visakhapatnam’s Paderu Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) reviewed NREGS works at Billaputtu village in Potangi panchayat of Dumbriguda mandal on Thursday. On the occasion, he instructed the ITDA staff to create work for 25,000 people per day under NREGS.