Shelter home becomes a centre of livelihood for jobless labourers in Chhattisgarh

Jobless migrant labourers who were facing trouble in making their ends meet amid the lockdown have now found a new workplace in Surajpur district. These labourers are now earning their livelihood by making bamboo tree guards while residing at a shelter home in Surajpur.

"After lockdown got imposed, the owner of the company we worked for asked us to leave. While we were on our way back to our native place, the police stopped us and provided accommodation in the shelter home. They told us to make bamboo tree guards. Within a span of four days, our group has earned around Rs 24,000, which is very helpful for our survival and for travelling," said Bhojlal Meshram (45), a labourer, speaking to .

"The district administration is taking care of our needs. I am very thankful to them for helping us. While walking for miles from our work place, we cooked food using pond water. Our children also walked miles. We faced hardship while we travelled. We are earning enough here but still we want to go back to our homes," said Basanta Meshram (40), another labourer.

Surajpur Collector Deepak Soni said that the administration has provided work to 266 labourers at the shelter home.

"A total of 570 people from different areas are stranded in Surajpur who are being taken care of as our guests. Out of these 570 people, 266 are being provided with work at the shelter home. We have provided them free food, shelter, indoor games, new clothes etc. When lockdown 2.0 started, we thought that they must be facing economic crisis, so we decided to give them work based on their skills. We told them to make bamboo tree guards. Bamboos were provided by state forest department," the Collector said.

Soni further told that a person gets Rs 200 for making a single bamboo tree guard. So based on the amount of work done, a person is able to earn Rs 500-600 per day. Apart from the bamboo work, the local administration is also helping the stranded migrants by providing them work related to borewell, construction, PWD work, etc.

( With inputs from ANI )

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