RANCHI: After the intervention of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), the company that had outsourced the work to Prem Power Constructions Limited, arrangements have been finalised for the safe return of all 48 migrant workers stranded in Tunisia for the past few months.
According to a video released by the stranded workers, they have allegedly been paid their pending dues, and their tickets have been booked by Larsen & Toubro. As per information released by L&T, all the workers will depart from Tunis for Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on 5 November. After arriving in Mumbai, they will travel to their home state of Jharkhand.
Meanwhile, the workers have expressed their gratitude to the company, saying they were recording the video footage “without any pressure from anybody.”
“On October 30, we had sent a video footage to our family and friends accusing Prem Power Constructions Limited and Larsen & Toubro for our trouble, but the latter has nothing to do with our payments,” stated one of the migrants in his video message. “Despite that, Larsen & Toubro officials intervened on October 31 and made Prem Power Constructions Limited clear our payments and book our return tickets without any conditions,” he added.
The migrants further expressed their gratefulness to Larsen & Toubro and apologised for unintentionally dragging the company’s name into the entire episode, stating that it had nothing to do with their plight.
Notably, as many as 48 workers from Jharkhand’s Giridih, Bokaro, and Hazaribagh districts have been stranded in the African nation of Tunisia for several months under extremely difficult conditions. Through a video message on October 30, these workers had sought help from the Indian government for their safe return home.
In the earlier video, they had informed that their salaries had allegedly been withheld for the last four months and that they were starving as they had no food to eat. They appealed to the Indian government for their speedy repatriation and payment of their pending wages.
According to the migrants, they were told they would be working as company employees, but after landing in Tunisia, they discovered that it was a contractual job. Moreover, they alleged that although they were promised an eight-hour workday, they were made to work for over 12 hours a day.
As soon as the video was released by the migrants, The New Indian Express flagged the issue and carried the report prominently in its online edition on October 31 and in its print edition on November 1.
