Another fishing boat carrying 33 migrant workers from Chennai reached Odisha’s Ganjam district on Tuesday. This was the third motorboat that carried migrants from Chennai to Ganjam since April 25. To dodge the lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), these workers opted for a dangerous journey without any navigation equipment.
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The motorboat set out from Chennai on April 24 and reached the Arjyapalli fishing jetty near the Gopalpur port at 1 a.m. Twenty-nine passengers were from Ganjam and one from Puri, and the other three were from Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. They were kept in quarantine at Arjyapalli High School. They were subjected to a medical test. The swabs of persons showing symptoms will be sent for test.
One of the two engines of their boat developed a snag near the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border. As the boat ran on a single engine, they arrived late. These migrants, who worked at the Kasimedu fishing jetty in Tamil Nadu, contributed ₹2 lakh to buy the boat.
288 migrant workers on their way to Ganjam from Surat by five buses
In the afternoon of Monday, a motorboat carrying 25 workers from Chennai reached Rameyapatna in Ganjam district. In the evening of April 25, a boat carrying 38 migrant workers from Chennai reached Patisunapur. They included 29 from Ganjam district and nine from Andhra Pradesh. All of them are in institutional quarantine in Ganjam district.
