Goa: Private buses ask for Rs 3 lakh to drop migrants home

CALANGUTE: With uncertainty and chaos around the return of migrant workers to their native states, private bus operators from Goa have been demanding Rs 3 lakh per bus to take workers employed by tourism stakeholders to Odisha, said sources.
Shack owners’ welfare society general secretary John Lobo said that with the governments of West Bengal and Odisha making no arrangements for trains to take back their workers from Goa, workers who are desperate to get back home before the monsoon have been hiring buses, and some have even arranged for buses to come and pick them up from their native states.
“Buses from Odisha are charging them Rs 1,98,000, which is much less than the Rs 3 lakh being charged by Goan bus operators,” Lobo said. In addition, the costs for bus drivers and helpers are extra, and it works out to around Rs 8,000-8,500 per passenger, he said.
Around 20 buses with 45 passengers each have already left Goa with workers from the tourism sector, sources said, and some more will be leaving in the next few days. “The workers are paying from their own pockets and some employers have also contributed,” Lobo said.
While many workers from the Calangute-Candolim tourism belt have managed to go back by the Shramik Special trains, around 200 from Assam are in a quandary as their state government is not allowing anybody to return to Assam.
“There is also confusion at the railways and government end. There was a train to Manipur, but they said they would not take anybody from Assam as they would not be allowed to get down in Assam. But at the last minute, when the train was ready for departure they allowed people from Assam who were at the station to board the train as there were around 700 empty seats. If they had informed me I could have sent my workers, most of whom are from Assam,” Lobo said.