Manoj Kumar, a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, is working as a painter at the Pune Metro’s site at College of Agriculture in Pune. His wife and children are at his home town. “Since work is going at full speed, I preferred not to go back home,” he said.
Many workers are in their quarters at the Metro sites since the lockdown. The Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (MahaMetro) has 2,800 workers at various camps in Pune. They work in day and night shifts at the Metro sites. A MahaMetro official said arrangements were in place for the workers at these camps. The labour continued to stay at the camps even when work was at halt.
Besides daily food the labours have been provided with the masks and sanitizers. The MahaMetro has now made temporary staying facilities for labours at some work sites to avoid daily travel of labours from labour camps to the sites.
“We are getting daily food. Adequate facilities of toilets and beds are available for us at the sites. We approach the supervisor in case of any requirements”, said Jhaman Mahato, an electrician helper, who hails from Chapra area from Bihar.
Ahmed Samsher Alam, who is a native of West Bengal is a supervisor at the Agriculture college metro site said that he takes care of infrastructural arrangements for the workers and monitors their job schedules.