NLSIU Bangalore alumni have donated money and organised the air travel home of 174 migrants stuck in Mumbai due to the Covid-19 lockdown, reported LiveLaw.
The initiative, which was not part of any formal alumni association but an informal effort only open to alumni, had been (and continues to be) widely covered in the national media since yesterday, with the chief minister (CM) of Jharkhand having reached out to thank the alumni, according to the Times of India.
As of yesterday, around 80 alumni had raised around Rs 12 lakh as of yesterday. The donor list, which we have seen, includes a few big shot partners from law firms, including one mid-size law firm, as well as former lawyers, advocates and others. The efforts were spearheaded by such former NLS students as Shyel Trehan (batch of 2000) and Priyanka Raman, with assistance from NGOs as well as IIT-Bombay social sciences PhD scholar Priya Sharma.
Raman told India Today: “We knew that there were many migrants in the city who were living in hard conditions and were desperate to leave for their home town. Our activist association had the list of migrants and since train services have become an issue, we decided to send them by air. The entire fund for air fare and transportation was arranged by the alumni association.”
According to a more in-depth report on the practical aspects of the operation by Bar & Bench, Tata Group general counsel (GC) Shuva Mandal was instrumental in the suggestion for the funds being used for travel by plane, rather than by bus.
The Tatas’ top lawyer’s involvement has presumably also helped logistically, in that flights these days can be hard to come by (the first scheduled flight they had booked had in fact been cancelled) and Air Asia, the carrier that leased a plane for the efforts and was used to ferry the workers home, is part of the Tata empire.
Indeed, the PR value alone for Air Asia would (or should) have made it an easy ask to convince the Air Asia powers-that-be to assist with the project (and considering that many airlines must be teetering on the brinks of bankruptcy right now, it’s also understandable that it was lawyers and not Air Asia that footed the bill).
One anonymous commenter wrote on Legally India that planes were actually not a lot more expensive than equivalent transport by bus for such a long journey, in this case:
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.
That works out to around Rs 10 lakh.
Millions of domestic economic migrants are estimated to have been affected by the lockdown, with lakhs having been getting food from the government, and many eager to return home.
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It is also time that Senior Counsel who charge a bomb for a single appearance shell out significant sums.
But. Would you have given 174 migrants 5,900 each.
Or. Given 860 migrants INR 1180 each.
And. Who would have been the lucky migrants!
those went who wanted to
migrants isnt one person times 1 crore all are different in what they want
for example most of us in bombay and delhi maybe even bangalore are migrants too.
hard to balance public heat policy with individual or family plight
It costs approx Rs 20 lakhs to charter a Airbus A320 which can take about 160-180 passengers.
Even if it were a competition, isn't that simply fantastic? imagine if NUJS or NALSAR or other institutions of any type replicates it. 1000 people contributing 1000 each can easily do this. And so many people reach home while you and I fight on legally India.
Sometimes publicity for a good thing is good.
www.ndtv.com/bhopal-news/bhopal-businessman-hires-180-seater-plane-to-ferry-4-family-members-2236590?pfrom=home-topstories
Interesting that this arithmetic missed the whizkids from ISB etc who populate NITI and other places in the government and opposition. Will the SC and other powers that be now at least do this, even as a "jumla"?
As the movie Contagion famously put it: Nothing spreads like fear. I will add that evil is contagious too.
Kejriwal and the promise of parivartan in politics. Reminds me of Messiah somewhere
Wonder why it took so long for SC to do this livelaw.in/top-stories/no-travel-fare-to-be-charged-on-migrants-notify-places-providing-food-for-stranded-migrants-sc-passes-interim-order-157455
Hedging bets as always.
twitter.com/MandhaniApoorva/status/1253954995151605760
Another NUJS alumna, who is also teaching contractually here, has been associated with coordinating migrant workers' movement over several states for the past one month and has personally helped many such workers get back home. She has also assisted in setting up radio channels and hotlines to deal with mental health issues during COVID.
Another NUJS faculty member has been living in interiors of Bengal personally providing relief to many of the homeless and destitute families, at considerable personal risk, away from home.
The students have already raised funds to assist not only contractual workers, but also vendors in the locality. Similar efforts are still under way.
I am sure there are several other alumni from both NUJS and NLUO who have been doing similar good work. Of course, based on some of the comments here, all of them have been highly amiss in not spending time and resources in order to get media coverage and give bites that sell. They should be well and truly ashamed of themselves. How dare they think that good work is its own reward, regardless of the publicity involved!
Commendable effort, publicity or not, you have to respect the fact that the help provided to the poor in the time of their needs, far outweighs anything else.
Keep up the good work.
www.barandbench.com/news/parent-profile-of-students-at-nlus-arts-019-agriculturist-1-business-20-govt-29-engineer-11-idias-diversity-report
www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/nlsiu-alumni-plans-second-flight-for-migrants-to-jharkhand-on-sunday-11590841891436.html
www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/how-a-collective-of-lawyers-is-sending-migrant-workers-home-in-lockdown-11590922395350.html
www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/delhi-hc-issues-notice-in-plea-to-extend-cm-advocates-welfare-scheme-to-all-delhi-advocates-irrespective-of-their-names-in-voter-list
Requesting the team behind this to please let the larger group of readers on this group know of any further moves, so that we could contribute whatever each one of us can. Great job guys !
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