Reverse migration of workers due to COVID-19 pandemic has not taken off in North Andhra on expected lines aggravating the woes of the entrepreneurs badly hit by the lockdown.
The relaxation of norms for ensuring full-fledged revival of operations which raised the expectation of entrepreneurs has remained short-lived though they are hopeful that in the coming months the workers who migrated to their native places will come back due to financial compulsions.
“Though some started to migrate to Reddivalasa in Vizianagaram and other parts of North Andhra, resistance from locals due to fear of spread of coronavirus has prevented others from coming back. Hostile reception may go once the number of positive cases come down,” MD and CEO of Vijayanagar Biotech Ltd Datla Tirupati Raju, said. Mr. Raju, AP unit vice chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry, told The Hindu that the migrated workers from Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and other States were unfortunately facing problem in their home States due to mandatory quarantine and not encouraging response from the places where they used to stay after their return to workplaces.
Sravan Shipping Services managing director G. Sambasiva Rao said reverse migration had started. In Visakhapatnam, almost 10% of migrated workers had come back and resuming work after undergoing home quarantine for seven days. He hoped that reverse migration would pick up momentum in next two to three months with the restorations of normal operations of trains and buses.
For A.K. Balaji, president of Visakha Autonagar Small-Scale Industrialists’ Welfare Association (VASSIWA), the revival operations in manufacturing and MSME units like re-rolling mills, ice plants, rice mills, ferralloys and processing plants had been hit hard for want of migrated workers.
He said acceptance level of migrated workers in their neighbourhood was low due to fear of virus spread and hoped that in the next few months the acceptance level would go up once COVID-19 situation improved. HPCL Visakh Refinery Contract Workers’ Union president Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao said for want of migrated workers the expansion project of Visakh Refinery from 8.3 to 15 million tonne had been badly affected.
