Another horrific travel tale of migrant labourers surfaced on Saturday when a heavy-lift dumper was seen parked on a dusty highway carrying such stranded migrant labourers to their hometown 800 km away.
The 10-wheel dumper was seen carrying migrant labourers in the scorching heat this afternoon on the outskirts of Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur.
“We have been sitting under the sun for nearly two hours. We haven’t eaten anything. There is no water,” says one of the migrants as reported by NDTV.
They were seen sitting on the bare metal of the truck’s cargo hold become visible from the ground as they stand up to look for water
“We have been travelling on this truck for four days from Hyderabad,” another worker said.
Many women labourers were also seen in the truck carrying their children with them and trying to veil them with the help of their saree from the scorching heat.
Yesterday, a horrific incident unfolded in Aurangabad, Maharashtra where 16 migrant workers were run over by the goods train.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh chief ministers and several other leaders expressed anguish over the tragic death of the migrants and offered their condolences to the families of the deceased.
In order to facilitate the movement of migrant workers, government had deployed 67 Shramik Special trains across the country.
According to the guidelines, sending states will pay the consolidated fare to the railways, which they (sending states) can collect from the labourers or from the receiving states. The railways print tickets to the specified destinations as per the number of passengers, indicated by the originating state.
As of now, India has registered around 58,000 cases with 1981 deaths due to the virus.