Out of work and no home to stay, migrant workers continue to while away time at the makeshift relief centres in the district. Over 700 of them, mostly men, have been in the centres in the town for three weeks.
Thousands of them have been stranded in the district as the lockdown was suddenly announced on the night of March 24 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The workers are mostly from Odisha and Karnakata while some of them are from North Coastal Andhra. Most of them are skilled workers – painters, construction workers, cooks and carpenters.
An NGO Kalyana Mandapam is sheltering 130 of them. These centres are maintained by the Guntur Municipal Corporation while food is being supplied by various charitable organisations.
No productive work
“I have been working as a tiffin master in a hotel on Amaravathi Road. I was shifted to this centre on April 2 and ever since, been living here. My native place is in Srikakulam,’’ says A. Narayana.
Narayana spends the day reading some old books which he had kept for himself and in the evening, whiles away time by sitting in the open spaces or watching others play.
Lack of work means most of them are sitting idle at the relief centres, but since there is a lockdown, they cannot travel to their homes either. The Guntur Municipal Corporation has options to make use of their skills.
Reports of migrant workers painting a school building in Sikara district of Rajasthan proved to be a welcome initiative and the GMC could take a leaf out of their book and use them in repairing school buildings, or in any other civil work, feel some experts.
