K'taka shelters labourers in relief camps to halt migration

Enforcing the 21-day lockdown strictly for containing coronavirus spread, Karnataka sheltered hundreds of workers, including daily wagers and construction labourers in relief camps across the state to prevent reverse migration, an official said on Wednesday.

Bengaluru, April 1 Enforcing the 21-day lockdown strictly for containing coronavirus spread, Karnataka sheltered hundreds of workers, including daily wagers and construction labourers in relief camps across the state to prevent reverse migration, an official said on Wednesday.

"We have halted intra-state and inter-state movement of the workers by camping them in community and wedding halls in cities across the state, with food and care," the official told .

The 3-week lockdown since March 25 at a short notice forced the migrant labour, including their women and children to rush back to their home towns or villages in private vehicles, tractors or even on foot as bus and train services were also stopped.

"With the help of local police, we have persuaded the reluctant migrant labour to stay in the relief camps for another two weeks, as lockdown is in force to protect them from the virus and no public transport to ferry them," the state home department official noted.

A partial shutdown in 9 districts, including Bengaluru Urban and Rural since March 14 and a complete shutdown since March 21 across the southern state forced hundreds of migrant labour leave cities to neighbouring states by any transport mode, as markets and factories closed and construction activity came to a grinding halt.

"The nationwide lockdown along with the suspension of buses and trains on March 25 panicked the remaining workforce as they were desperate to go back to their native place because they could not afford to stay put in cities for 3 weeks without work and money," recalled the official regrettably.

Karnataka shares border with 6 states, including Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Admitting that the sudden lockdown with no transport caused untold hardship to the migrant labour, the officials said on the condition of anonymity that there was a delay in setting up the relief camps from day one

( With inputs from IANS )