In Tamil heartland, cops speak Hindi to help guest workers

CHENNAI: Early this week, Bikas was in a hurry to return to his home town in Bihar where his wife was expecting their child. But, the 35-year-old could not communicate his urgency to officials at MGR Central Railway station.
Now, an exclusive call centre manned by five Hindi-speaking policemen at the office of the additional commissioner of police in Vepery addresses this problem.
Tasked with sending guest workers home, police tied up with a software firm to sends bulk SMSes to selected guest workers, indicating the date and time of their boarding, additional commissioner of police (south zone) Prem Anand Sinha told TOI.
The call centre receives not less than 100 calls a day and the five uniformed personnel manning it have been trained not to just note down the details of the guest workers, but also to offer them supportive talk.
The software firm roped in for the project keeps track of those who have applied online. As soon as a message is received that the trains have been readied, the SMSes reach them and many arrive at the station. “We had thousands of workers from states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam among others applying to go home. Moving them from their places of work to the stations and arranging trains for them needed detailed planning and coordination. It had the potential to become a law and order problem as well as severe hardship to the guest workers. We ensured it was done perfectly,” Sinha said.
Officials of Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and nodal officers for the various states played a key role in getting the trains required and ensuring that all the facilities were available at the railway stations concerned, he added.
All these efforts have paid off and nearly 1.07 lakh guest workers have taken trains to their home states so far. Many have sent a happy note of appreciation to the police officers in the city. Chennai police commissioner A K Vishwanathan has lauded the coordinated effort that has brought smiles to the faces of several workers.