Can run Shramik specials, but state not seeking them, SCR tells Telangana high court

HYDERABAD: Even as the migrant workers’ waiting period to go back home is getting longer, the South Central Railway on Tuesday informed the Telangana high court that none of the district collectors had sent it any requests for arranging Shramik special trains since June 1 though it was ready to organise the trains.
Taking a serious view of this, a bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy faulted the collectors for failing in their duties and for not making efforts to send the stranded labourers to their native places. At one point, the CJ ticked off the collectors for not following the court’s previous orders on shifting the labourers and wondered where would the hapless migrants go if the officials do not help them. Appearing for SCR, advocate Pushpender Kaur said: “We have resumed our services partially. We are ready to arrange Shramik trains within 24 hours of any such requests from the state or the district collectors. We have not received any such request from the collectors since June 1.”
Collectors failing in their duties: Telangana HC
The bench recalled that it issued a direction on June 2 that they (workers) should be sent to their destinations either through Shramik specials or special trains. “We read in newspapers that they were being shifted in Shramik trains. We do not understand why this has stopped thereafter,” the bench said while hearing a PIL filed by S Jeevan Kumar of the Human Rights Forum (HRF).
The bench further said: “In fact, the district collectors are failing in their duties. They do not need our orders to identify the stranded labourers and request for trains. The irony is that they are not moving even after our orders,”
Going a step further, the CJ said: “I am beginning to get a strange feeling that our orders are falling on their deaf ears. It is not difficult for a district collector to get a picture of what is happening at Secunderabad railway station.” He wondered, “There are no Shramik trains. And there are no shelters. Where do these poor migrants go.”
At this point, advocate general BS Prasad furnished a report filed by the labour department and sought time to put forward the case. The bench gave him 24 hours and posted the case to Wednesday to explain the inaction on the part of the civil administration. “Large crowds at the Secunderabad station will further jeopardise the health of other passengers,” the CJ said. He also reminded the government that the apex court had directed the government and railways to take care of the migrants by arranging food, shelter and transport.
The case will be heard again on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court had also made it mandatory for states and railways to arrange Shramik trains for transporting the workers to their destinations.
Earlier, Vasudha Nagaraj, counsel for the HRF leader, said the workers are stranded in various parts of Secunderabad and Medchal. “There are no shelters near Secunderabad station where the workers are forced to take shelter under transformers or near congested roadsides,” she informed the bench.
The labour department has also agreed that there are 16,000 brick kiln workers waiting to be shifted to their destinations in Odisha, she said. Jeeven Reddy was questioning the inaction of the labour and revenue departments for failing to help 60,000 Odisha labourers working in 1,218 brick kilns in Telangana.
Later, the CJ allowed Vasudha’s plea to implead SCR as a party to the case.