Around 40 GNLU Gandhinagar students in addition to 72 volunteers, including GNLU alumni, has started a project to assist migrant workers to return home.
The students and volunteers had individually contacted and assisted around 6,000 labourers catch the so-called Shramik (labour) special trains home, fifth-year student Varun Srinivasan, who is volunteering in the programme, told us (more details and success stories are contained in the PDF included in the article below).
The project is similar in ambition to the Mazdoor Mitra website set up by NLIU Bhopal students, which we had reported on earlier this week, as well as other ad hoc projects law students at other schools have been involved in.
GNLU’s Srinivasan said that over the last days, the GNLU Centre for Law and Society (GCLS), co-ordinated by GNLU students Abhishek Vyas, Shashwat Shrivastava, Aayushi Jain, Chinmay Mehta, Dushyant Thakur and Disha Devadas, had begun assisting the Zenith Legal Aid Clinic in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh on its work.
“As GCLS members began the work, they were startled by the difficulties faced by labourers and quickly threw open the project to volunteers from the entire University,” he said, noting that the 40 students in the society had quickly enlisted more volunteers, to number a total of 112, who had been working “around the clock” to “assist labourers to get home, for stranded victims to get food, rations and supplies”.
“The story has been remarkable,” Srinivasan said. “The initial project was to contact labourers who were given a seat in the special shramik trains who had otherwise been unable to get confirmation. These led to follow up calls to track and map labourers who were unable to take the train, aggregating their locations and providing that information to the Maharashtra government so they could make informed decisions on where and when to ply trains to maximise its impact.
“Over a few days, our phone calls (now numbering over a thousand) exposed issues of food shortage, employer abuse, shelter issues. The volunteers began an trial and error approach of cold calling government departments, civil servants and NGO’s to help resolve these distress situations which has now ballooned into a concerted attempt to map food shortage issues from all migrant labourers who have registered for shramik services and connecting them with NGO’s and government departments who could assist them.”
Scaling the project: Not without other NLUs
While the project grew haphazardly initially, the students have now begun to systematise efforts, leading them to wonder if the project could make a greater impact if more law universities could participate, since a Times of India report from today suggested only 30% of labourers intending to return home have managed to do so safely.
Each could take one state under its wing and work across a common playbook and pool their lessons, contacts, NGO networks and experiences gained form this process of acting as bridge between distressed labourers and relief-providers, suggested Srivinasan.
“If all law schools come together, adopt a state, and coordinate with each other in developing a NGO and governmental network, the volunteers work on mapping where the distressed labourers are, we believe law schools will have provided a critical service in this troubled time,” he added.
Volunteers have been spending around three to four hours per day making calls and updating collaborative worksheets (though coordinators were working all-day, back-to-back, particularly in organisational work and trying to connect to government and NGOs).
Practical challenges
Each state has set up a task force to oversee the travel of migrant labourers. We got in touch with the team in Madhya Pradesh - a group of 9 IAS officers tasked with this, with one nodal officer. This officer, through Zenith Legal Aid Clinic, provides us with an excel sheet of labourers who have applied for the shramik trains and their contact info.
After that, “the distress team first contacts the nodal officer or government officer in charge of the location where the labourer is situated”, he explained. “At the same time, we try to identify any NGO which operates where that labourer is currently located, and relay the information to them so they can deliver food or medicine to that person. We then follow up with that NGO or [government] officer as the situation is resolved.
- Abhishek Vyas (+91 8469681997)
- Disha Devdas (+91 9408168318)
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-NLU alumnus
Tch. tch.
i remember seeing these scenes at railway stations till late 90s maybe later- not seen recently. has it stopped? also how dod they manage to stay safe?
China is 200% liable under international law and it is possible for individuals to bring claims.
Regards,
Democracy Lover
p.s. I don't care about China at all, before someone randomly starts throwing allegations. Nor am I a 'leftist', whatever that word is meaning these days.
Please watch this video to know more about their work:
www.livelaw.in/news-updates/nlsiu-alumni-network-raises-funds-to-lease-chartered-air-asia-flight-from-mumbai-to-ranchi-to-airlift-stranded-migrant-workers-157385
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/law-grads-raise-funds-to-charter-mum-ranchi-flight-for-migrants/articleshow/76018607.cms
The point here is that, EVEN in the game of seeing which alumni body has the biggest conscience or doing the highest profile work (which is clearly what NLIU tried, with this absurd "sue China for damages" - who do they think they're kidding? OR this boring NGO-coordination amateur hour by GNLU), it is Law School that is the true king of the hill. Everyone else can be also-rans.
As someone who contributed towards the Air Asia flight, wanted to clarify a few things:
- The per person cost if a bus were to be used worked out to INR 5,000. Flight cost per person came to INR 5,900. For a marginal increase in cost, the time saved and the hardships mitigated were enormous.
- A single bus would only fit ~50 passengers while a plane could carry upto 180 passengers.
- As has been mentioned in other media outlets, the connectivity between Mumbai and Jharkhand is poor. Hence this route was chosen.
Hope this clarifies a few things. NLS Alumni are not delusional to pour money into a useless PR gimmick. This is a mode that works both for the cost and time savings and we would do it with or without the PR. Here's hoping we can send more such flights to save those who sustained us.
This leads to the conclusion that this was probably a PR move, in which case kudos. Very well executed.
The point is it's easier to be an armchair critic who nitpicks without knowing ground realities. There is nothing to be gained from the 2 minute fame that B&B and few media outlets confer. All of us still have the same day jobs to go back to.
Ask yourself the same counterfactual question: how difficult must the logistics be that even with the support of Jharkhand state machinery, one had to send people through a flight rather than a bus?
have you thought of how difficult it can be to travel via road from Bombay all the way to Jharkhand? Them folks handled 180 people that they could - ensuring that they have a. comfortable, dignified journey to their homes. They deserve and applause for that. end of story.
Everyone should maximise their own efforts rather than claiming one law university's efforts are better than another.
www.telegraphindia.com/calcutta/coronavirus-lockdown-nujs-sends-uttarakhand-workers-home/cid/1783582
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