Himachal Pradesh: ‘Labour class suffers in lockdown relaxation with no public transport’

DHARAMSHALA: Relaxation in lockdown without any public transport is making labour class employees in various parts of Himachal Pradesh to suffer. Small scale industries and business joints have been opened for five hours daily. Fear of losing jobs is making employees of the labour class to walk for kilometres to reach their workplace and then further toil to complete pending tasks.State transport department has made preparations to start their services but government has not taken any call on it yet.
52-year-old Pawan Kumar, who works in welding industry, walked at least 10 kilometres on Monday from Bhalech village near Shahpur to reach his workplace at industrial area of Kangra district to complete the pending works that were left halfway due to lockdown.
He told TOI, that he has no vehicle at home and people don’t offer lifts in their cars due to scare of coronavirus. “I usually get some lift in car or bike from people. But due to scare of coronavirus, people are not doing this now,” he added.
On another hand, Masand Kumar, who also works as a labour class employee, took arduous task to reach his workplace 8 kilometres away from Kholi village. “We have to save our jobs, we don’t have big savings, so i walk this distance daily,” he added.
Kewal Kumar, who is a mason from Masred village, was caught by cops at Mataur area of Kangra district while he was taking a short route to his home from after completing his work with associate labourers at a construction site. Cops allowed him to go after giving him a warning to not move out in curfew hours.
“I got late as work was not completed at site, so i took a shortcut route to reach home. But I was caught, fortunately cops left me after giving warning not to violate the curfew,” he added.
The state government has not given any deadline yet about the starting of public transport. The local economy will only move if movement will start between villages and towns. Former transport minister GS Bali said that government should plan strategies before relaxing the lockdown. "They should facilitate poor of the poorest in the society," said Bali.
Deputy director of state transport department J M Pathania has said that they have 6,300 buses in state and all of them have been sanitised. In addition to this, material including masks, hand globes and sanitisers to meet the requirement for two months has also been purchased.
“The services will start after instructions of the government only,” he added.
At many places, the workforce is not reaching to industry units due to the lockdown issue without any public transport. In Una district, industrialists have raised the issue with labour department.