Hyderabad: Labour crunch dogs key government departments

As the migrant labourers are flocking back to their native states every moving day amid the ongoing Covid-lockdown in the State, several departments such as GHMC, Irrigation and Civil Supplies Departments especially in Ranga Reddy district are facing tough time to carry out loading and repair works ever since the restrictions imposed.

While the officials of civil supplies have not yet managed to get the labourers due to lockdown, the loading of paddy in empty Lorries queued at Mangalpally Rice Mill in Ibrahimpatnam have not yet taken up even after two weeks. This situation could inadvertently lead to delay in supply of food grains to the designated godowns thereby to ration shops next month.

Around two weeks ago, a team of civil supply officials made a visit to Rice Mill at Mangalpally and found that loading of paddy was not taken up due to shortage of labourers. It was found that a large number of labourers have left the work and returned to their native states after several of them found positive with Covid-19 infection. Since then around 35 lorries are laying empty at the rice mill and waiting to see the commencement of the loading process. It is said that the local officials have tried to arrange labourers from nearby districts to start the loading process but their efforts have failed to yield any result so far.

"As the lockdown continued, the availability of labourers to carry out loading at Mangalpally Rice Mill became a difficult task. Most of the labourers were returned back to their native places out of fear after few of them were infected with the infection while no such work force is available even at local level. The situation at Mangalpally Rice Mill has remained so while the paddy stock is piling at procurement centres. The loading will pick up pace only if the migrant labourers turned back to state or we could manage to get them locally," informed an official on the request of anonymity.

Not much different is the situation of the Irrigation Department where officials are facing similar difficulty in carrying out repair works at several lakes in and around the city after some water bodies received minor to moderate damages in the recent rains. The bund of Appa Cheruvu received cracks in recent rains – that lashed the city and surrounding areas nearly two weeks ago, have prompted the irrigation officials to run atleast for temporary repair works. However, despite two weeks of time passed, the officials failed to get the labourers atleast at local level to carry out the repair works.

"We have not yet taken up repairs at Appa Cheruvu Lake as labourers are not available due to lockdown. We even provided permission to a contractor for arrangement of labourers and to carry out the works but nothing is being materialised so far due to the prevailing situation. We keep on trying to get the labourers locally to execute the work," informed Vishwam, AEE Irrigation Wing, (GHMC).