JOIN USKendrapara, known for its human resources, has seen its skilled population, including plumbers, migrating to the Middle-East over the years to eke out a better living.
Six plumbers who returned safely to their families said here today that it was a providential escape from a virtual death-trap.
"It was a sort of lucky escape from the claws of death. I am fortunate in the sense that I lived in the Libyan capital city of Tripoli. That's why I could come back with my friend Saroj. Things are precarious everywhere," Somanath Bhuyan (25), a plumber from Diyanpatana village in Pattamundai area said.
"There is no safety of life and property in Libya. But things are somewhat better in the capital city where the Gadaffi regime holds grip over anti-government uprisings," Bhuyan said.
Saroj Khuntia of Nimapur village, who also fled from that country, agreed with his friend.
Recalling the traumatic days in the aftermath of uprising against Libyan ruler, Saroj said, "Since February 17, we were holed up in the quarters given to us by the company. We stopped venturing outdoors."
"After daybreak, gunshots terrified us daily. The employers were giving us two square meals every day. As ration thinned out, the food quantity dropped. It was chaos every where. From within the closed doors, we have heard people screaming and crying for help," Saroj said.
"With armed escort, we, a group of fifty India workers, were carried in a van to the airport. It was 24 hours painstaking wait at the airport before we were airlifted on March 3 to New Delhi," he said.
"More than two dozen workers from Kendrapara district are still stranded in that country. All of them are plumbers based in Libya’s eastern and western parts.
One of them, Rama Chandra Das from Chandiagadi village of Rajnagar tehsil, had talked to me over phone. The telephone network was poor. He and five others from Rajnagar are locked in no-man’s land of Zawiya," Khuntia (24), a resident of Nimapur said.
Despite the horrendous experience, the plumbers still think of moving back to Libya once order is restored in the oil-rich Middle-eastern country.
"We are left with little option but to move over to our workplace. I was getting a monthly salary of Rs 17,000. I worked as a plumber in a posh residential colony project near Tripoli. The monthly remuneration package is too tempting to reject," Saroj observed.
"During my 13 months stay, I have found Tripoli to be a nice and hospitable place. I got salary in time. We were provided free food and accommodation. In about a year-long employment, I had saved over Rs 1.5 lakh and sent it to my parents through Western Union money transfer," Saroj said.
"It was under extraordinary circumstances that we were forced to leave. Our employers have told us to be back after things get better. There was peace and order in Libya before the outbreak of civil war," he said.
Poverty now stalks the family of the plumbers from Nimapur village. After Saroj's Libyan employment, the four member family was leading a decent life. "My father cultivates one acre of land to support us. I have a college going younger brother and sister. My income came in handy for all of us. I have to go back," Saroj said.
"We do not have exact figures of number of people from Kendrapara who got employed in Libya. From the information gathered so far, 50 to sixty plumbers and electricians were there in Libya when the disturbances erupted there. But we believe the number of migrants would be on a higher scale," said district labour officer, Pradipta Kishore Mohanty.
The crux of the problem is that these migrant workers do not come under Inter-state Migrant Workmen Act, 1979.
"We have no administrative control over such things. The immigration wing of the External Affairs ministry deals with this," Mohanty said.