BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Government has opened 276 temporary camps to take care of workers from other States stranded in Odisha following the nationwide lockdown from March 24 midnight. Announcing this, Chief Spokesperson of COVID-19 Subroto Bagchi on Tuesday said till now 19,388 workers have been sheltered in these temporary camps.
Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Pradeep Jena has written to all Collectors to arrange temporary shelter and food for the stranded migrant labourers.They have been asked to make necessary arrangements for providing food (hot cooked meals and dry ready-to-eat) to all migrant labourers at `60 per adult per day and `45 per child (up to 12 years) a day. “The cost towards this food arrangement shall be met out of State Disaster Response Fund,” he said.
The SRC-issued guidelines for maintenance of daily register on provision of food for the migrant workers stranded in different parts of the State due to the lockdown.Meanwhile, the State Government has also started an exercise to contact workers from Odisha stranded in other States. More than 1.2 lakh workers from Odisha are stranded in States like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal and Telangana.
The 20-line call centre in the city has so far received nearly 5,200 calls, including 200 from groups having 100-plus persons.
Bagchi said a response team with 12 senior officials has been constituted and it is coordinating all relief activities for the stranded migrant workers from Odisha. Briefing mediapersons after presiding over a high-level meeting at Loka Seva Bhavan here on Tuesday, Principal Secretary in Home department Sanjeev Chopra said the State Government has reached out to 40,000 of 1.5 lakh non-resident Odias.
Stating that State control room has so far received about 5,200 distress calls, Chopra said nodal officers appointed for all States to assist Odias are constantly updating the Government on them. “As of now, 230 groups with more than 100 Odias have been identified, of which a majority of them are residing in Delhi NCR, Gujarat and Mumbai,” he said.