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NLU arranges train to ferry over 1,600 migrants home
An application to allow an urgent the special train to transport 1,650 migrant workers amid coronavirus-triggered lockdown was made last week before the district magistrates of Ahmedabad and Surat. The request was sanctioned on June 9.
Around 1,650 migrant workers were ferried from Gujarat to Jharkhand on a Shramik Special train arranged by the Legal Aid and Awareness Committee(LAAC) of the National Law University, Jodhpur, on Wednesday.
According to the press release issued by LAAC, the train departed from Ahmedabad at 8pm with a stoppage in Surat at around 11.30 pm. It is expected to arrive at Ranchi in Jharkhand on Thursday.
The student body, which works for various socio-legal issues has undertaken initiatives to spread legal awareness among the less privileged and is currently trying to address the concerns of migrant workers who have been hit by the national lockdown and economic downturn.
The LAAC took the help of a Non-Governmental Organisation(NGO), Prayas Center for Labour Research and Action, to gather contact details of the migrant labourers. They traced their locations and conducted telephonic interviews to understand their needs and prepared a database of such labourers. More than 19,000 such workers were contacted, of which, many of them had already reached their native state.
The committee then gathered and collated Aadhaar details of those labourers who wished to take a Shramik train back home.
An application to allow an urgent the special train to transport 1,650 workers was made last week before the district magistrates of Ahmedabad and Surat. The request was sanctioned on June 9.
“It is a long way to go. Many of these people are facing resource and cash crunch and are without work and we are exploring ways to alleviate those issues. But this is a good start”, convenor of LAAC, Jayati Garg told HT.
The alumni from the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, had also accomplished a similar task in May when they raised over Rs 12 lakh to lease an aircraft and fly 180 migrant workers from Mumbai to Ranchi.
