Hyderabad:The first passenger train after the lockdown was imposed in the country rolled out of Lingampally on the outskirts of Hyderabad, carrying 1,200 migrant labours from Jharkhand on Friday morning, amid concerns that their homeward journey would immensely hamper the chances of revival of infrastructure and industrial manufacturing sectors in near future. The Telangana government faced a major crisis on 29 April, after around 2,000 migrant labours stationed at a Covid relief camp at Kandi in Patancheru industrial area near Hyderabad came out on streets in large numbers and pelted stones at a convoy of police vehicles after they were denied permission to return homes in Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Bengal. They were working for several infrastructure firms, most of them for L&T company in the area, and were put in a camp since the Jatana curfew on 22 March. They were given Rs 500 cash and some rice by the authorities, but the L&T and other managements haven’t paid their wage arrears for February and March, on the fears that they might go home, if their dues were cleared. These labours, mostly in their 20s and 30s, had came out on streets seeking their payments as well as to go return homes, but the police and the local district administration managed to keep them inside. But, on Wednesday, they defied the police presence and threw stones at their vehicles and raised slogans demanding that they be sent home. Some police officials were injured and a vehicle was damaged. The task force on migrant labour in the Ministry of Home Affairs in Delhi got its act together and came out with fresh guidelines for the states, permitting all stranded workforce to return to their native places immediately, albeit with some precautions.
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