The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) appointed contractors undertaking the metro construction work in the MMR except the underground metro 3 (Colaba--Bandra--SEEPZ) is witnessing the return of workers to their work places. After the lockdown was imposed, several workers left for their hometowns leaving the contractors with a severe manpower crunch. This lead to the Metro and other infrastructure projects work being badly affected.
According to the MMRDA, the contractor has managed to outsource labourers from within and outside the state. On Metro Line 7 --(Dahisar East to Andheri East) till date about 386 labourers were brought from the state, while 115 labourers were brought from other states. In July, an additional 175 labourers from Maharashtra and 755 labourers from other states are expected to arrive.
Similarly, on Metro Line 6 (Jogeshwari--Vikroli) a total number of 115 skilled and unskilled labourers from Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, West Bengal have returned. While on Metro Line 4 --(Wadala --Kasarwadavli) and 4A --(Kasarwadavali to Gaikmukh) a total number of 546 workers have returned and about 282 labourers are expected to return in the next few days.
These workers were brought in private buses by the contractors while those belonging to Maharashtra managed to come on their own, informed the MMRDA official.
After Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s call to provide employment to ‘locals’ at Metro and other infrastructure sites, the MMRDA recentlhy issued an advertisement seeking 16,726 workers for various infrastructure sites including metro related works.
