Guest workers seek to return home

Coimbatore: More than 1,000 guest workers gathered at Sulur on the outskirts of the city late on Wednesday night and requested officials to send them back to Bihar, their home state.
The officials advised them to approach respective village administrative officers (VAOs) to register their names. Based on the registrations, officials would give priority to stranded guest workers eyeing a trip home.
Later, the guest workers were told to leave for their workplaces. However, more than 200 guest workers began walking towards Coimbatore railway junction from Sulur on Thursday morning but were intercepted by ex-army men and Sulur police and were sent back to their workplaces.
Ranjan Kumar, a native of Patna in Bihar and a welder at Thennampalayam, said that the police used mild force against the guest workers in the name of dispersing the crowd. “My friends have reached their hometown from Coimbatore. We want to go to our hometown too, and the Tamil Nadu government should send us immediately,”said Ranjan.
As of now, around 2,000 guest workers from Sulur taluk have been sent back to their home states such as Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam.
Revenue department officials said that of 16,000 guest workers working in industrial sectors in Sulur Taluk limits, around 10,000 had registered their names with the respective VAOs and their details had been sent to the district collectorate.
“As of now, 10,000 guest workers are ready to travel to their home town. But we are giving importance to stranded guest workers. Most of them are staying in their workplaces and their companies are providing food to them. However, a section of workers are staying in rented rooms and have run out of money for food and rent. We are sending them in batches to their hometown,” said Sulur tahsildar Meenakumari.