Builders luring migrants with air tickets

Left with no option, builders in Hyderabad are now booking air and AC train tickets for migrant workers in the hope of luring them back to their sites. The average cost per head for air tickets is Rs 4,000 to 5,000. The migrant workers from Hyderabad may have suffered nightmarish journeys in their bid to escape the lockdown and return to their homes in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, but now they can return in style. So, jet-setting into Hyderabad are carpenters, painters, granite workers and scaffolding experts primarily from Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. They comprise 40% to 50% of the city’s labour strength. The rest come from UP, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.