This story is from April 19, 2020

Kendrapada kiln worker carries disabled child on 200km trek home

Kendrapada kiln worker carries disabled child on 200km trek home
Kendrapada: A brick kiln worker of Pattamundai in Kendrapada district on Saturday began a 200-km walk to his home in Keonjhar district, carrying his eight-year-old disabled child on his shoulders, after the owner of the factory refused to pay him any money or provide him with shelter to tide over the current crisis.
Chakradhar Munda, 40, a tribal native of Ghasipura village in Keonjhar, and his wife are both employees of the brick kiln in Pattamundai.
For three weeks, the couple has been out of work, and were also evicted from the tiny makeshift hut they stayed in near the kiln. On Friday, matters came to a head when the owner of the kiln refused to provide them with any food or money, prompting the family to begin the arduous walk to Keonjhar, about 200km away. The family, which was stopped by police in Kendrapada town for a few minutes on Saturday but was allowed to move on after it detailed its plight, hopes to cover the distance in three or four days.
“How could we have stayed back after the owner told us to go to our village? I caught hold of my disabled son and started walking as he is unable to walk. We are dying of hunger. Some locals provided us with food and water at Tinumuhani Chhack in Kendrapada town,” Munda said. “We are not afraid of the coronavirus. Hunger is the real threat,” he added.
Munda said they had Rs 1,200 with them for food and other expenses along the way. “The problem is almost all hotels, dhabas and eateries along the road are shut,” he added.
The lockdown, and its subsequent extension, has cut adrift hundreds of migrant workers like the Mundas from everything that moored them to their place of work. While local governments have promised to reach out to such persons with food and aid, and have also asked factory owners to pitch in, brick kilns across Kendrapada have turned out their workers without money or food, said trade union leader Jagajiban Das. “As large numbers of migrant workers move to their homes on foot, many will die of hunger and the journey than of Covid-19,” Das, president of the district unit of Citu, said.
Niranjan Sethi, additional district magistrate of Kendrapada, reiterated that the district administration had asked all brick kiln owners to provide food and shelter to their workers. “We will take legal action against those who violate the order. We recently provided 56,364 construction workers in the district with Rs 1,500 each,” he said.
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