Goa: With no pay, 400 migrant workers in dire straits at Kadamba Plateau

Newton Sequeira | TNN | Updated: Apr 18, 2020, 08:39 IST

The workers want permission to return to their native villages, where they can find employment on farm

PANAJI: Around 400-odd construction workers who find themselves with no work and limited food and water stocks since the lockdown was imposed, claim they have not received any funds from the state government. Far from the fear of contracting Covid-19, the workers are worried that without work or food, their families would be pushed into starvation.
The stranded workers are from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Many women and toddlers also live in abysmal conditions at the site .
“From March 22 to April 1, we were left to fend for ourselves. Construction work has stopped and we have been left here,” said Ashok Kumar Kaushik, from Janjgir-Champa in Chhattisgarh. He arrived in Goa on February 27 along with 20 others from his village to work at a construction site on Kadamba Plateau. Just three days earlier, chief minister Pramod Sawant announced that 8,641 construction labourers were paid Rs 6,000 each. The state government has formulated two schemes that were meant to directly transfer funds to 15,000 construction workers and around 4,000 labourers.
“Not a single person here received any money. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may say we should get paid, but you give me one example of people getting paid for doing no work,” said Pappu Singh, a resident of Rajasthan’s Alwar district.
A majority of the construction workers also said they did not have the building and construction workers (BOCW) identity card, which is critical to avail the benefits that the state has declared.
With food running out, members of an NGO, Goa Sikh Youth, came to their aid and has begun distributing meals on a daily basis to the stranded workers. “We serve them rice, dal and vegetables enough to last them for lunch and dinner,” said Sandeep Singh Gill. Whenever possible, Goa Sikh Youth offers the children chocolates, water bottles and biscuits.
With no income, most of the workers want to go home, where it is cheaper to source groceries. Many of them also want to head home to assist in farming activities as the monsoon is approaching.
“Earlier, the contractor would provide us with a water tanker everyday. Now, the shortage of water is a big problem for us,” said Haldar Kashyap.
The workers were brought by two labour and construction contractors — one is based in Jaipur and the other in Goa. They said that officials from the department of health visited them to screen for Covid-19 symptoms. A week earlier, a government vehicle distributed 4kg of rice and a portion of pulses per two people.
The unemployed workers, who are crucial to the state’s construction industry, want work to resume or permission to return home.
“I have been working in Goa for eight years as a daily wage labourer on construction sites and I would go home after every two months, taking with me Rs 20,000-30,000 for my family. Now I don’t have money to send and my family is calling every day, asking me to come back,” said Ganesh Kushwaha from Madhya Pradesh’s Satarpur.
Goa Sikh Youth has been running a community kitchen and provides food to construction workers and daily wage labourers at Mapusa, Candolim, Betim, Tivim, Assonora, Marcel and Merces. Its members cook three quintals of rice and 30kg of dal each day.
“If anybody would like to help us, we need supplies,” said Gill. They prefer not to take cash donations, he said, while also appealing to poeple to lend them vehicles to deliver food.