With highways sealed; hundreds of migrant workers opt for interior roads

GNN | Mar 30, 2020, 8:29 PM IST|

• Mobile phones used extensively to advice each other on the best possible options
• Ahmedabad Collectorate sets up shelter homes

Gujarat News Network

Ahmedabad, March 30, 2020: Migrant labourers wanting to go to their home states after the outbreak of the corona pandemic are using all means to reach their homes safe and sound. Not only are the workers using interior roads to avoid police on the main highways but are using mobile phones to advise each other on the best route available.

“Our attempt is to stop exodus of migrant workers,” a senior source at the Ahmedabad District Collectorate tells GNN. “But now this is a new challenge.”

Migrant workers, especially those working in Surendranagar, Bhavnagar and Morbi districts, are using interior roads of villages to pass through Ahmedabad district as the highways are manned by policemen.

Ahmedabad District Collector KK Nirala while confirming this said the workers were walking through fields and interior village roads. Accepting this as a challenging task to track hundreds of such labourers walking on the interior roads, the collector exuded confidence that it would be brought under control within a day.

Most of these migrant workers are walking into Ahmedabad district are walking in from the western side. As per the plans chalked out, these workers will be stopped wherever they are and accommodate them in shelter homes set up by the administration.

The collectorate has set up shelters in every taluka (administrative block) of Ahmedabad district. About 25 shelters have been set up in rural areas. In Ahmedabad, the biggest city of Gujarat, the collectorate and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation have jointly set up shelters in different areas of the city.

Interestingly the workers are very well connected through mobile phones and advise each other on the best possible route available they can take to reach their native places.