In a Victory for Stranded Migrant Workers, H.P. High Court Directs Govt. to Provide for them

The High Court of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday directed civic authorities and district administrations to supply free ration and medical care to thousands of stranded migrant workers across the state. 

Hearing a petition by lawyer Subhash Chandran K.R., the two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Narayan Swamy and Justice Rewal Dua asked the government to take immediate steps and file a response on the action taken before May 5. 

The order read: “The petitioner is directed to supply all particulars to the District Administration concerned immediately and in turn of receipt of such particulars supplied by the petitioner, the district administration is directed to immediate steps. The respondents/state is directed to file the status report as to what steps they have taken to redress the grievances raised by the petitioner by or before the next date.”

After the nationwide lockdown from March 25, stranded migrant workers are finding it hard to find their next meal. MLAs from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress organised a sit-in in front of the office of Shimla’s District Magistrate, Shimla to press for the issue.

“I had moved the High Court on April 17 but given the seriousness of the matter, the court heard the matter the next day, which was a Sunday,” Chandran told NewsClick. “The advocates who appeared for the state demanded some time to furnish their reply. The next hearing was scheduled for April 22 and the court said that the administration should ensure that no worker should go hungry,” he added.

Chandran spoke about the present condition of workers in the state as well, explaining that Himachal Pradesh attracted two kinds of workers: seasonal, those engaged as porters and tree cutters and secondly, workers who are engaged throughout the year with establishments like hotels, restaurants and other businesses. 

“With the sudden announcement of the lockdown, workers could not return to their homes. It’s almost a month since the lockdown was announced and their savings are exhausted. If the government does not support these workers, we will see numerous deaths from hunger. The situation is so bad that Kashmiri workers who came to cut the acacia trees have been hungry for days, stranded in jungles and calling me consistently for help,” said Chandran.

In a video that they shot, the workers from the Jammu and Kashmir said they were only eating once a day to save rations. One of the workers in the video said: “We are 18 persons in a tent. How would we maintain social distancing? Also, many workers are sole bread-winners of their family and their family members are waiting for them back home.”

Sanjay Chauhan, the former Mayor of Shimla, told NewsClick that the state currently hosts 1.5 lakh migrant workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha. Out of these, about twenty-five thousand are engaged in construction alone. These are daily wage labourers and they face an imminent threat of starvation unless government executes its claims and promises.

“The workers were so far fed by some Non-Governmental Organisations, like minded people and a local Gurudwara but they have very limited capacity. Since these are migratory workers, they neither have ration cards nor they can avail the free 5 kilograms of rice,” he said, mentioning that they could not even avail benefits from the PM Garib Kalyan Yojna.

Chauhan added that the workers who hail from the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh are stranded too in the industrial towns of Solan, Nalagarh and Baddi. However, the government seems to be unmoved from the crisis and has not released a single penny for them yet.