As COVID-19 cases dip in Delhi, work on Pragati Maidan Integrated Transit Corridor resumes

Work on the Integrated Transit Corridor around Pragati Maidan in the national capital resumed.

Development work of Pragati Maidan Integrated Transit Corridor resumes slowly! On Monday morning, work on the Integrated Transit Corridor around Pragati Maidan in the national capital resumed. Larsen and Toubro Limited, which is the contract company, had made arrangements for 300 workers to stay in temporary sheds throughout the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown. These sheds were built on an empty plot at Sarai Kale Khan, according to an IE report. Jeevan Kumar Das, the construction supervisor, was quoted in the report saying that he and other workers who stayed at those sheds were provided with three meals a day. According to another worker, the on-site rooms could accommodate four or five people, but it was difficult for the ones who are with families.

On their first day, workers continued to work on an underpass. A group of workers from a contract company called Nina Percept at Pragati Maidan, working on this project, chose to stay back. They said that even though the work was put on a halt, they were given 30 per cent of their salary.

At a construction site of the phase-4 project of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), work continued throughout the COVID-19 lockdown period as the contract companies had made arrangements for workers near the site. However, work on the project had slowed down due to a shortage of labours. According to a security guard at the site of construction, due to uncertainty, only 25 of 175 labourers stayed back when the government first announced the lockdown.

This time around the second pandemic wave, the oxygen crisis, as well as the surge of novel coronavirus cases, added to workers’ woes and fear. A worker at the site of construction said that one of their site engineers contracted the Covid infection and died. The engineer had very low oxygen levels, he mentioned. Since then, they have been too scared, he further said. The labourers started coming back to work once the cases of COVID-19 declined. Approximately 100 workers were present at the construction site on Monday, the report added.