Civic body sends migrant broom-makers to transit home

Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday relocated five families of seasonal migrants, who were staying under a flyover and were selling eco-friendly brooms, to a transit home at Rasulgarh.
They belong to Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and had come here to sell brooms made up of branches of some shrubs, which are available on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
The BMC swung into action to rescue and relocate them as none of them knew anything about the corona virus and they continued to live under the flyover after the lockdown was imposed.
“Since they have no home and they didn’t know that corona is a virus and has become pandemic, we decided to shift them to transit home so that they are not infected and infect others. We had to toil hard to counsel and convince them to shift to the transit home. They will continue to stay there till the lockdown is lifted. Cooked food will be provided to them during the stay,” said BMC deputy commissioner Kamalakanta Behera.
A BMC official said the migrant families usually migrate from Chhattisgarh in winter and they stay here till June-end. Because of the lockdown, neither could they return home nor do business.
“When the squad moved to enforce lockdown and social distancing, it had come across plight of this distressed people, who were oblivious of the current pandemic. So, it is a humanitarian aspect of the squad to rescue such people and help them live with safety at this juncture,” said commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation Prem Chandra Chaudhury.
During their stay in the transit home, the migrants will be allowed to sell the brooms but will not be allowed to go out, official sources said.
The traders will come to the transit home and buy the brooms in bulks at the gate. One family of the migrants makes 25 brooms a day.