As we all know the world is going through a tough time and during this tough time, the Legal Aid Cell (hereinafter the cell) of Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad has taken an initiative to help and support stranded migrant workers. I am delighted to share that within a few weeks, the cell has reached out and helped a lot of people who were in need.
“RUN FOR HOME” is a student run initiative by the cell, which is a 13-member team comprising of Anuj Agarwal, Payal Golimar, Naman Bansal, Somya Gupta, Saurabh Singh, Avni Jajot, Bhushan Yadav, Aditi Pandey, Avdhesh Parashar, Tejal Deora, Yusra Fatima, Anjali Chauhan and convened by Bramhansh Bhardwaj. This initiative aims to help and support stranded migrant workers in any possible manner in the prevailing situation of global pandemic. It started in the month of Mayand since then it has come a long way. The cell has taken up several tasks based on the information it gathered or received from various sources. Now, after only few weeks, the cell has increased its outreach by helping over large number of stranded migrant workers and the cell is a part of a very widespread network with those who are working for the similar cause around the nation. As of now, various tasks have been successfully accomplished under the cell’s supervision.
Some of them are:
The cellgot some information about Mr.Narayan along with 30 people(around 8 families) who were stuck in Shajapur near Aurangabad withabsolutely no essential supplies including food. The cell immediately tookthat into consideration and provided them with dry ration through one ofthe volunteers, Mr. Gaffar Shah and the issue wasresolved immediately.
Afterwards, the cell got to know about Mr.Sudhakar and 20 others who needed transportation facility across the State, from Aurangabad, Maharashtra to their native place in Madhya Pradesh. The cell provided them the necessary details about the government buses and distributed food packets and water bottles at the bus stand.
Through Dr. K. Krishnan (Executive Director of Foundation of Sustainable Development), the cell got details of around 29 people who were stuck in a village Ghuma near Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The cell contacted withMunicipal Corporation, Ahmedabad and helped them with their ration requests.The same group of people also needed transportation facility from Ghuma to their village in Odisha. We coordinated with the Centre for Labour Research and Action (CLRA) and they were kind enough to provide them a private bus from Ghuma to Machkund, Odisha.
A group of 7 people needed transportation facility from Aurangabad, Maharashtra to Harda, Madhya Pradesh. Ms. Rukmani Kapoor helped the cell in arranging the same. She was kind enough to take all the permissions and arrangea private vehicle for these people till Burhaanpur. Moreover, from Burhaanpur, few Government Officers took the charge and helped these people.
The cell is also in touch with many National Law Universities for the fulfilment of such initiatives like: NLIU (Bhopal), GNLU (Gandhinagar), NUJS (Kolkata) and RMLNLU (Lucknow).
Special mention should be made to the team of volunteers comprising of Mr. Gaffar, Mr. Ramesh Shrivastav and Ms. Rukmani Kapoorfor their unquantifiable support.
