Govt to airlift 208 migrants engaged in Ladakh road projects in next 2 days

Ranchi: The state government on Sunday declared that it would fly in 208 migrant workers from Ladakh. These workers were engaged in various construction projects of the Border Roads Organization (BRO) since last autumn.
In a statement, the government said a batch of 115 workers will reach Ranchi’s Birsa Munda International Airport at 10am on Monday. Another batch of 93 workers are expected to arrive on Tuesday evening. All of them were engaged in BRO’s projects in Nubra Valley, Chunthug Valley and Diskit areas of Ladakh. The workers are mostly from Santhal-Pargana.
“The workers were taken to New Delhi by air with support of BRO officials and a few industrialists. They will be camping in New Delhi’s IGI airport for the night. Their food is being provisioned by Jharkhand government,” a source in the chief minister’s office said.
This will be the third evacuation of stranded migrants from Ladakh. Earlier, two flights arrived in Ranchi from Ladakh carrying 60 and 180 workers respectively. Over 300 workers were evacuated from Andaman & Nicobar Islands in two separate flights recently.
On asked why the government is bringing back the workers while BRO is looking to recruit more workers from the state to expedite its ongoing construction, the source said, “Their work got over in March this year.”
Many of the migrants working in the BRO projects claimed they are yet to get their money. Some are yet to get to paid by their contractors the wages of up to seven months. Most of them are paid around Rs 10,000 a month.