E-Paper
Aiming to reach Karnataka on a truck, 45 labourers sent to shelter homes by Pune police
Labourers are among the 1,000 workers who had migrated to Maharashtra for work and now have been provided food, lodging by city admin
The Pune police found 45 people trying to cross over to Karnataka from Pune in a truck on Sunday night and took them to an accommodation in Aundh set up by the city administration.
Among the 45 were 17 males, 14 females and 14 minors who started from Pimpri-Chinchwad and were trying to head to Karnataka through Bopodi chowk where they were caught at a check post.
These 45 people are among the 1,000 who have been provided protection by the city administration. All are labourers who had migrated to Maharashtra for a source of livelihood.
Kalabai, 45, is one such migrant labourer who is residing at Mahatma Phule High School which is one of the 15 shelters set up by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
“I was working in Andhra Pradesh with my husband and uncle. We are from Chhattisgarh. It’s been 15 days since we have had any guidance on what needs to be done - the contractor who had brought us, fled. We started walking from the site we were working, last week and got into a truck in which we travelled for three days without food. He dropped us at some bypass road that led to Pune. We walked from morning till night and reached Pune station where we were picked up by the police and brought here. We finally had a meal when we got here,” said Kalabai.
The four shelter homes and 15 government school premises are home to over 1,000 people. They are being provided with beds to sleep, steel dishes to eat from, food, bathrooms, water for use and drinking, and security.
However, along with migrant labourers, there are people who are yet to learn the effects and causes of Covid-19 which has caused a pandemic and claimed thousands of lives world over. The lack of information is making the task of the authorities difficult. The Phule school, where Kalabai is residing, is where most of the destitute and beggars from Pune station area are brought. However, 10 of them ran away at night as they thought this was a form of confinement that they often face.
“This feels like a jail. I do not know why I’m here. I was going to Nanded to avail free treatment for my mouth ulcers. I do not have a place to stay if I do not have work. So, when the buses were cancelled, I started sleeping and waiting for the bus near the railway tracks. When will this end?” asked Gopal Kisan, 76, a labourer from Kerala who has been involved in doing odd jobs in Pune for several years and has no family. He was shocked to know that the entire country has been and will remain in lockdown until April 14.
However, a commercial cook from Mangalore who did not wish to be named, spoke in perfect English as he stood in line to board a truck arranged by PMC from Gogate Prashala in Narayan peth to go to Rajiv Gandhi e-learning school in Yerawada. “Some basic necessities and information should be provided. I live in Mangalore and have been working in Pune for 16 years now. I was here with lots of other people for work. Now, because of this disease, I cannot go home,” he said.
The people from Gogate Prashala were being taken to the school in Yerawada due to overcrowding, according to PMC official Bhimaji Shinde.
“There isn’t enough space here. It beats the purpose of social distancing. We have been asked to send 50 people in these three trucks,” said Shinde.
