Telangana High Court seeks report on conditions at shelters for guest workers

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court posed a searching question to the government on Friday: “Imagine you are a migrant labourer and were asked to live like an animal in cramped accommodation. How would you feel?”

The court was questioning overcrowding at a shelter for guest workers in Regimental Bazaar in Secunderabad. Some 350 people live in space meant for 120. There are only three or four toilets.

The case came up before a division bench comprising chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and justice B. Vijaysen Reddy, seeking a directive to the government to ensure that guest workers and brick kiln workers are given a passage to their native places at the earliest.

The chief justice observed that it was the duty of the government to look after guest workers; they cannot be left at the mercy of nature.

Vasudha Nagaraj, amicus curiae, informed the bench that the guest workers have been stranded at the Regimental Bazar shelter because the Indian Railways have not arranged Shramik special to take them home. The Railways are insisting that they will run only Shramik trains and not earmark bogies for guest workers in other trains.

On this contention of the Railways, chief justice Chauhan observed: “Are people more important or revenue? I think people are more important and they cannot be kept in animated suspension for such a long time.”

The court directed officials of either the social welfare or labour departments to visit shelter homes where guest workers are staying and file a factual report by June 22.