Even as migrant labourers belonging to Telugu states stuck up in various states are desperate to return to the home state due to the country-wide lockdown, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has come up with a strange proposal to bring Bihari workers to Telangana.
With the commencement of harvesting of paddy crop, which would be followed by milling of rice, the state requires large number of labourers in the rice mills.
Many of the workers in the rice mills are from Bihar and they had gone back to their native state much before the lockdown.
Now, KCR wants Bihar to send all those migrant labourers from Bihar to work in the rice mills in the state.
He directed chief secretary Somesh Kumar to speak to his Bihar counterpart to request him to send back the workers.
“If necessary, I will talk to the Centre to arrange few special trains to bring back the Bihari migrant workers,” he said.
The Telangana is likely to record a huge production of 1.05 crore tonnes of paddy which would be procured from farmers from April 1.
The rice mills would procure the paddy at designated procurement centres in villages in view of the lockdown and they require labourers from Bihar who do the work.
According to the chief minister, 95 per cent of the workers in rice mills were Bihari migrants. These workers, who load and unload the rice trucks, had gone to Bihar for 'Holi' and are now stranded there due to lockdown.
The procurement of paddy will begin in the first week of April and will continue till May 15-20.
KCR said the markets in towns would remain shut and entire procurement will happen in villages by following all the social distancing guidelines and other precautions.
