179 migrants stranded in Karnataka flown back to Chhattisgarh

As many as 179 migrants, stranded in Karnataka due to lockdown, returned to Chhattisgarh on Thursday from Bengaluru by a flight arranged by the alumni of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU).

The Indigo flight carrying 179 passengers including women and children took off from Bengaluru around 8 am and landed at Swami Vivekanand Airport here around 10 am, an airport official here told PTI.

A few civil society organisations in Chhattisgarh decided to bring back by flight over 350 migrant workers from Karnataka and contacted alumni of the NLSIU and National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad, said Vinaysheel, who coordinated the effort.

Alumni of the NLSUI paid for air travel of 179 passengers who landed here on Thursday while the travel cost of other 174 migrants, scheduled to land here from Bengaluru on June 5, was being footed by alumni of NALSAR, he said.

Returning migrants looked relaxed and happy. For almost all of them, it was their first experience of air travel. "I am happy to have come back safely. I am thankful to all those who helped us return," said Rajni Chandra (28) who was carrying her two-year-old child in her arms.

Chandra, who worked as a labourer at a construction site in Karnataka, was stuck there after lockdown was imposed in March to contain coronavirus. She was a bit jittery as she was travelling by aircraft for the first time, but the journey will remain etched in her memory forever, she said.

The Raipur district administration made arrangement for medical screening of arriving migrants at the airport and provided buses to ferry them to their respective districts, said a local official. The passengers will be quarantined after they reach their home districts, he said.