11.6 lakh want to leave Karnataka, 80% of them workers

BENGALURU: The number of people wanting to leave Karnataka has seen a massive jump as registrations now near 12 lakh, nearly 80% of whom are workers. While this has the industries and the construction sectors concerned, the government too is under stress to ensure that those leaving, especially workers are provided smooth transit.
As of Wednesday night, the Seva Sindhu portal had received 8.3 lakh applications from 11.6 lakh stranded people wishing to leave the state.Of these, 1.4 lakh applications were by those who intended to leave with their families, while more than 6.8 lakh applications were from 9.1 lakh workers.

Apart from workers, there are nearly 2.5 lakh stranded people, including tourists, students and pilgrims. So far, nearly 2.9 lakh people have left the state, including 2.6 lakh sent through various Shramik Special trains.
Although the government says we can operate with up to 33% of our strength, not more than 10% to 20% of the workers have reported back to work. It is especially a problem with skilled labour and the fact that this is happening when we are already dealing with lack of raw materials, working capital, and more importantly demand, makes the situation worse,” J Crasta, national executive member, FICCI, said.
Officials dealing with workers say that the registrations saw a huge jump after the state decided to bear the cost of their travel. “While there were applications even earlier, we’ve seen a sudden spurt now, which is overwhelming. We are working with the railways and other states to ensure that all these people travel back safely but you must understand that no state has people in the administration who have the experience of dealing with such mass exodus in their careers,” one senior official said.
Of the 9.1 lakh workers wanting to leave Karnataka, 60% of them want to go back to just the five states of Bihar, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha.
And, not surprisingly, most of the people (55%) who want to leave Karnataka are presently in Bengaluru. While 5 lakh people are stranded in Bengaluru urban, Bengaluru Rural has 59,437, followed by Belagavi (26,124), Kolar (22,819) and Ballari (21,169).
While government officials pointed out that a majority of these are construction workers, Chaluve Gowda, director, Hombale Constructions, said: “More than 50% of our workers have already left and our productivity has dipped severely. If this continues deliveries will get delayed, which will result in financial burden as it would impact the cost. We had several workers leaving our camps even last night.”
Manjunath Prasad, the officer in-charge of outgoing migrants said Karnataka has held discussions with the West Bengal government to provide consent for Karnataka to send people. On Wednesday, Prasad wrote to West Bengal additional chief secretary MV Rao requesting permission to operate 22 special trains from Karnataka. The state is also coordinating with all other states, especially Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.