By C Shivakumar
Express News Service
CHENNAI: Denied their salaries and threatened with dire consequences by their
contractor if they approach anyone, eight migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar
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Mogappair in Chennai. (Photo| Debadatta Mallick, EPS)
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Migrant workers from UP and Bihar display their identity cards in front of the construction site where they work, at
Pradesh have been forced to run from pillar to post as they struggle to survive in a
city whose language is alien and with just one meal a day.
Thirty-four-year-old Sunil Kumar, from Maharajganj Zilla in Uttar Pradesh, who
came to Chennai during the lockdown in August on a bus hired by Gayathri
Constructions, says, "We came her through our sub-contractor Joginder, who runs
the company Siddhi Vinayak. A total of 36 workers came here during the period."
He said that Joginder paid him for August and September, following which the
contract was shifted to another sub-contractor working for Gayathri Constructions,
who has not paid him since October.
"They haven’t paid me for four months,"
Sunil said, adding that another worker's salary has been pending since November,
and six workers haven’t been paid for two months. Besides them, many workers
who weren’t paid returned to their hometowns, Sunil alleged.