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'Migrants venturing out of Jharkhand need government's consent'

RANCHI: State ministers Mithilesh Kumar Thakur and Badal Patralekh were present at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda International Airport on Thursday evening to welcome the workers who were flown back from Andaman & Nicobar Islands.


Around 180 migrants arrived from Port Blair’s Veer Savarkar International Airport to Ranchi around 6pm in a chartered plane which was hired by New Delhi based company Interlink Foods Private Limited.

The company paid Rs 22 lakh in air fares for the migrants, sources in the state government said.

The migrant workers were mostly from Khunti, Simdega, Koderma, Garhwa, Dumka and Hazaribag districts and were stranded in the islands due to the lockdown. Upon arrival, all were screened with thermal scanners and made to board buses bound for their respective districts.

Stating that more migrants are scheduled to come in coming days, Soren said: “The lockdown has given us a lesson that migrants are stranded in every part of the country and it is not possible to fend for themselves in times of crisis. So, from now, the state government will endeavor to maintain that workers of Jharkhand , who are venturing out of the state for employment, go with the state’s consent.”

Speaking to journalists in Project Building, Soren said the state government is preparing a database of returning migrants for being able to provide them employment here. “Many more migrants are to come in the coming days,” he said.

This was the fourth batch of Jharkhand’s migrant workers who reached Ranchi by air. On May 27, the alumni network of National Law School in Bengaluru sent 174 persons from Mumbai to Ranchi in a chartered commercial airliner. On May 29, 60 migrants were evacuated from Batalik sector in Leh and brought to Ranchi by two commercial airliners at the behest of Jharkhand government. On May 30, 180 migrants were flown back from Port Blair by the state government in a chartered Indigo flight.

Madan Kumar, one of the arriving migrants, said: “During the lockdown, there were shortages of food and money. Unless the situation improves, I am not venturing outside Jharkhand for employment.”

Earlier in the day, a delegation of Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industries met Soren and urged him to consider giving more relaxations in the ongoing lockdown. “Not only the MSMEs, but the government is also incurring losses. But we will open lockdown in a phased manner,” he added.

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