JOIN USLittle relief? Andhra Pradesh CM Jaganmohan Reddy orders food-water provision every 50 KM on highways for migrants walking home
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy has directed officials to set up food, water provision centre for every 50 KMs along the highways in the state where the migrant labour are walking towards their homes.
Personnel manning such relief centres should counsel the migrants about the Shramik trains and buses etc., transport facilities and dissuade them from walking further.
The move comes in the wake of reports from across the country of several migrants dying on their long walk without food or water or after reaching destinations severely dehydrated and exhausted. One such construction worker walking from Hyderabad towards his home in Odisha reportedly died on Tuesday after walking for about 300 KMs in the sun.
In a review meeting held on the COVID-19 situation and the humanitarian crisis the pandemic has caused, Reddy, according to officials, has expressed worry over migrant labour walking with their children in the summer heat frantically to reach their native places.
A few Shramik trains have left from AP in the last few days. Though officials are persuading migrants to wait till necessary trains are arranged, some are choosing to trust their feet.
“Officials should keep a watch on such migrants. If found walking long distances, migrants should be sheltered at the relief centres and made to wait till priority arrangements are made to facilitate their travel by Shramik Trains,” said M T Krishna Babu, principal secretary, roads and buildings department.
State run RTC buses would be used to take such exhausted labour to the nearest train embarking point.
Babu, who is the State’s COVID-19 control room coordinator, said that respective district collectors should make arrangements for the food-water takeaway centres at every 50 KM distance, for which NGOs could also be mobilized.
“In the instance of migrant workers going by walk to their native within AP, they should be taken to the nearest relief centre, organized in groups to drop them at their respective areas by buses,” the official further stated.
Meanwhile, 36 new COVID-19 positive cases were reported in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, taking the total to 2100. The figure excludes the 105 migrants who tested positive after arriving in AP from various states.