KOCHI: Yet to recover from the shock of losing four colleagues in the Kalamassery construction site accident 10 days ago, migrant workers deputed there have more reasons to worry. For they have been rendered jobless, after work was suspended at the NeST Electronic City project site.
Though the contractor and the company officials promised to provide them jobs on another site, nothing has happened so far, said Mony Mondal, who escaped the accident narrowly. “We are shattered after the death of our friends. Now the accident has also made us jobless,” he said.
With their efforts to get work at other sites failing, many of them moved to their hometowns. According to the information available, 20 of the 25 workers at the Kalamassery site have left the state. “Though the company provided food, how can we sit there without a job? I have a family to take care of back home. If I can’t send them money, they will starve,” said Imran Mondal, another migrant worker.
He said he waited for nearly five days to get a job as promised. “But they didn’t keep their word. So I was forced to move to my native place. The tragedy has changed our lives,” he said. The workers who were provided accommodation inside the company alleged they were not allowed to go out.
“We were forced to spend entire days just looking into our mobile phones. Even the food they served was not to our taste” said another worker on condition of anonymity. A company official said the workers will be asked to join once work resumes. “We hope the work can be resumed soon. We will call the workers back then,” said the official.