With the Centre permitting transport of migrant labourers stranded across India to their home-states, GHMC is plagued by fears of mass exodus of labour force, impairing the ongoing projects for an indefinite time.
Already, thousands of migrant labourers, skilled and semi-skilled, have left the State along with their families, trusting their own feet to carry them to their destinations. This was despite the lockdown regulations barring inter-State travel of people.
Opening the gates to reverse migration could result in labourers clamouring to get back to their home-towns, officials fear.
“The workers are extremely homesick, and worried about their children back in their native places. No amount of wages could hold them back now. Already several batches have left, and still more are ready to go,” said an official of the GHMC.
The corporation has employed several thousands of migrant labourers in its double bedroom housing project, while scores of them are working in various project components of the Strategic Road Development Plan.
“So far, the SRDP works have been going on at a brisk pace, so we could hold the workers back somehow. But now, since the Centre has accorded permission to travel, they might not be willing to stay,” the official said.
The process is not simple though. The workers will have to first appeal to their State governments to take them back, which will be routed back to the Telangana government, before the process is furthered.
Permission or no permission, several workers have already left by stealth, not giving any information to the contractor. According to officials, there were several attempts to escape, and a batch of 40 labourers did succeed in their mission. “They escaped one fine day, without informing even the project manager, after which all of them switched off their mobiles. They could be traced only after reaching their home State, Rajasthan,” the official said.
Of a total 55,000 labourers working at 104 double bedroom project sites, about 45,000 are from outside the State. More than half of the workforce had already left, and the remaining would leave now, said another official.
“The project work cannot be resumed before October-November even by the most optimistic estimate,” the official said. Work is going on for construction of close to a lakh dwelling units in the city under the flagship project of the TRS government. Of these, more than 50,000 dwellings have reached the stage of completion, officials said.