In a bid to enhance communications with migrant workers walking into Tiruvallur district and help them reach shelters, the Tiruvallur police and administration have roped in Hindi-speaking volunteers and policemen.
With over 6,000 migrant workers housed in 21 shelters in Tiruvallur and many more being brought here from various districts, one of the major challenges faced by the administration and the police was the inability to communicate in Hindi.
“This was posing as a problem as it was important for the guest workers to trust us and this can be done only by conversing in their language. Hence, we identified policemen who could speak Hindi as well as some local volunteers,” said P. Aravindan, SP, Tiruvallur.
While the civilian volunteers are Nandan from Jharkhand, Kalicharan from Odisha and Nilesh from West Bengal, the two from the police are R. Soundararajan and D. Parthiban from Sholvaram police station.
“We have a check post at Padianallur and the workers who walk towards Tiruvallur are stopped here. The volunteer, from the respective state, will speak to them and convince them to go to the shelters and stay there till a train is arranged by the government,” said Pawan Kumar Reddy, ASP, Ponneri.
The two policemen will go in patrol vehicles along the GNT Road and if they spot anyone walking or cycling, they will speak to them in Hindi and take them to shelters. “We were deployed in Tihar Jail for few years and picked up Hindi,” said Mr. Parthiban. The policmen speak Telugu as well.
R. Soundararajan said that the main concern of the migrant workers is about the trains. “All of them want to be with their families. But they want to return to Chennai after a few months,” he explained.
The police have also set up a watch tower on the Chennai Outer Ring Road to monitor the movement of workers. “Some people take a circuitous route to reach Gummidipoondi when they spot us at the checkpost. Hence the policeman at the watchtower checks for migrant workers too,” added the ASP.
The Tiruvallur district administration has also roped in officials who know Hindi to communicate with migrant workers at the shelters.