MALAYIDAMTHURUTH:Influx of migrant labourers from West Bengal, Assam and Orissa has completely changed the economics of this once sleepy village in Kizhakambalam grama panchayat. Ignoring the risk factors of safety and security, local people are seeing the migrants as a source for easy money.
Though the police and panchayat authorities have been warning the people to be careful while dealing with the migrants, many of them are making the most of the opportunity to mint money by renting out their premises.
‘A majority living here are illegal migrants’
Panchayat member Mini Ratheesh said, “Locals are constructing temporary shelters adjacent to their homes for renting it out to the migrants. They charge a monthly amount of `700-900 per person, with about 30-40 migrants being housed in each structure. Even people rent out houses to a batch of 20-30 migrants, charging a monthly rate of `800 per person.”
Mini said only if the people unitedly acted in a responsible manner, the authorities will be able to handle the menace.“People should be more responsible. They shouldn’t jeopardise their safety and security for some extra money. During a recent survey, we came across a lot of temporary shelters set up exclusively to house migrant labourers. We numbered such shelters making it mandatory for the owners to pay tax. We’ll be taking up this issue seriously. We want all people to cooperate with us,” she said.
Kizhakkambalam panchayat secretary M N Harikumar said it was really tough for them to collect the number of migrants staying in such shelters as majority of them are illegal. “In fact, we don’t have any idea on the number of such illegal shelters. As per rules, if a person is constructing a house, they’ve to get it numbered from the panchayat. As per our records, there’re only a few buildings registered with us for housing the migrant labourers,” he said, adding that nowadays the migrants do not stick to a locality for more than three-four months and keep moving.“This trend has in fact multiplied the risk factor. Even the people who rent out their premises don’t know who’re all staying there,” he said.