VIJAYAWADA: A group of 35 migrants, among whom one is a woman in her nine-month pregnancy, walked all the way to Vijayawada from Machilipatnam to board a Shramik Special train to their native, Chhattisgarh. Earlier, the migrants had missed a train to their state, and to avoid missing the second opportunity, they, along with their children, set off on foot on Saturday and reached the city two days later.
With the intervention of TNIE, they have been relocated to a relief camp in the city until they take the next train to Chhattisgarh.Shatrugna, one of the migrants, described the group’s ordeal, “We had registered our names at a police station and the revenue office near our work place. As per our registration number, we should have been on the train that left for Chhattisgarh on April 13. But neither did anyone inform us about the train, nor did anyone come to take us to the railway station. As we did not want to miss another train scheduled to leave this Tuesday, we reached the city in advance.”
Rajkumari, the pregnant woman, is likely to give birth on May 24.
When TNIE requested sub-collector Dhyanchandra HM to make some arrangements for the group, he said that the migrants could be taken to the office of the mandal revenue officer, which was around six kilometres away from where the group was spotted.
In view of the lack of transportation, TNIE contacted other officials of the district administration and Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC), who responded positively.Vijayawada (West) tahsildar M Madhuri arranged an APSRTC bus for the 35-member group within 15 minutes.
They were shifted to a relief camp set up in Loyala College. A medical team was alerted and asked to examine Rajkumari.