COVID-19: Migrant workers in Kozhikode yet to get support

Lack of facilities in camps leads to spread of disease

Even as the Labour Department boasts of special consideration for migrant labourers, many of those who now stay back in various rural labour camps in Kozhikode district are yet to get medical attention or social support to overcome the pandemic scare. Though there is an increase in the number of daily COVID-19 tests, quarantine rules are hardly followed by workers owing to the absence of facilities in their camps. A district-level control room opened by the Labour Department to answer migrant workers’ grievances is also proving to be ineffective with the less number of daily calls. Workers are even clueless about the launch of such a service. Language barriers have also hit many as they struggle to understand local arrangements and restrictions imposed to fight the pandemic. A migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, who works in a salon in Kozhikode city, said employers of many of his friends in the district were yet to offer any service to them to help them survive. “Many of them are managing food expenses with their own money. It will change only if they get the food kit promised by the government,” he said.