Rajasthan: In gratitude, migrant workers give Sikar school a paint job

TNN | Updated: Apr 23, 2020, 07:11 IST

Migrant workers painting a Sikar school on Wednesday

JAIPUR: For migrant workers at a shelter home in Palsana, Sikar, it’s time to express their gratitude to villagers for taking care of them at the moment of crisis. The workers, who are at the shelter home due to the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, were so humbled and grateful that they decided to paint the walls and verandhas of the government school, giving it a new look.
“We will go home when the time comes. But here we are getting ‘dal bati churma’, ‘jalebi’, ‘kheer’, ‘namkeen’, ‘puri sabzi’, ‘halwa’...we also got ‘rasgollas’...we are manual labourers and cannot stay idle for long,” said Shankar Singh, who is from Barwala town in Hisar district, Haryana, and has been staying at the shelter home in Palsana for the past 22 days.
“If we do not work, we will get sick. So, we voluntarily offered to paint the walls and verandhas of the school where we were made to stay. This also helps in passing the time,” Singh said.
In Palsana town, a group of migrant labourers from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan gave a facelift to the school building in which they were quarantined. In all, 54 workers have been kept at the shelter home at Shaheed Sitaram and Seth K L Tambi Government Higher Secondary School in Palsana.
“We will not charge anything for this work. The students of this school are like our daughters. When they grow up, they will remember us. They will say ‘these uncles had painted our school when we were students’,” said Singh, who worked in Jaipur on Agra-Ajmer Link Road. “Police brought us here when we were leaving for Haryana. The villagers, administration, sarpanch, and the principal have made all arrangements for us and we are grateful to them. They take very good care of us. Every village in the country should have such a sarpanch, who is so proactive. They have provided us with blankets, soaps, pillows, mattress, etc..we are very happy here. We don’t miss home at all.”
Palsana sarpanch Roop Singh Shekhawat said, “Shankar Singh, Om Prakash and Ravi Kumar from Haryana offered to paint the school building and requested us to get paint brush and colours. The villagers, teachers, and ex-students of the school helped us in collecting Rs 1 lakh to buy the required material by running a campaign on social media. They donated Rs 2,000 each. The labourers in the village who have expertise in painting work also joined them. “All these people are perfectly healthy. Their medical check-up is also done on a daily basis,” he added.