366 stranded Odia migrants brought to Bhubaneswar in three special flights
BHUBANESWAR: Three AirAsia special flights carrying stranded workers from Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh arrived here with 122 passengers each on Sunday.
Out of 366 migrants, 280 belonged to Ganjam district alone. Others are from Jajpur, Nayagarh, Kendrapada, Cuttack and Angul districts. They were working in Anantnag, Jammu and Samba districts of J&K and Kangra and Una districts of Himachal.
The migrants were taken to their respective districts in separate buses from the airport. The officers of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other state government officials deployed at the airport for the purpose completed the formalities of stamping them and registering each one after arrival.
“Owing to lockdown situation, Odisha government has undertaken a mission to safely bring back all the migrant workers stranded in different parts of the country. It decided that person stranded in remote parts from where train services are not available and travelling on road is not possible, will be evacuated by Air,” government sources said.
“Although there were none from the capital city, we facilitated the return of the migrants to their natives from the airport by providing food packets on their arrival,” said BMC deputy commissioner Subhendu Sahu.
Praful Dalei of Odagaon village in Nayagarh district was working in Jammu as a construction technician and was stranded due to lockdown. “I had registered in government portal for return. I was planning to come by Shramik train but that didn’t happen. I got a call from Odisha that we will be returning in a flight,” he said.
A flight carrying stranded labourers from Andaman and Nicobar will arrive here on Monday. This will be the seventh special flight to bring the stranded Odias from different parts of the country to the state.
On Wednesday, 280 migrants from Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam had returned in three flights.
Officials said the migrants will be put up at institutional quarantine centres in respective panchayats of the district.
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