Rayagada is the lone district in Odisha for being in green zone. Swabs of 1,584 persons were sent to RMRC, Bhubaneswar for testing and all were declared as negative by CDMO Artabandhu Nayak.
On May 25, 275 samples were sent in 17th phase and all were declared negative on last Friday.
For Rayagada in green zone, the credit goes to the law abiding people of Rayagada, PRI members and the proactive administration.
Exodus of labourers via shramik special trains and other means of transport and by walking is still on in Rayagada. According to an official Press release by DIPRO, till writing of this report, 1,354 migrants had arrived by eight shramik special trains since May 14. Out of these, 430 migrants belong to Rayagada. Till last Monday, 9,276 migrants were sent to different places out of which 6,495 migrants were sent to different districts of Odisha by 128 buses. Maximum migrants from Balangir district numbering 5,451 were sent by 104 buses. So, according to official sources, 3,211 migrants are of Rayagada district including 430 by train , which is very low compared to the potential of reverse migration expected.
Though there is a crude estimate that 25,000-30000 labourers are returning to Rayagada through various means, the district administration is not sure of the number of migrants, who have actually returned since the first phase of lock down.
The Rayagada police with direction from SP Dr Sarvana Vivek M, also have picked up 1,904 non Odia migrants and transported them to their respective States.
Coming to the livelihood scenario, during a district level coordination meeting on last Tuesday where Collector Pramod Kumar Behera presided in the presence of PD-DRDA Amrit Ruturaj, the Sub-Collector and few selected NGOs, a planning exercise was done on methodologies to accelerate employment generation under MNREGA through departments like Agriculture, Horticulture, Fishery, Watershed, Forest and ITDA. Emphasis was laid to implement schemes like plantation, pond excavation, etc. The person days will be increased to 80,000 from the existing 47,000 in the context of reverse migration to Rayagada.
“Unfortunately rampant use of machines is seen in many parts of Rayagada. It is certainly a point of concern if machines replace the wage earners. A few Government functionaries are saying that the local labourers are not agreeing to join; but this can not be a plea to violate a constitutional act”, said farmer entrepreneur of the district Bijaya Mishra.
“Though the district has planned to involve several community resource persons like Krishi Mitras, Prani Mitras, master book keepers, workers of NGOs/CSOs in chalking out innovative programmes, they will turn out to be futile in the absence of a skill mapping of the returnee migrants and clarity on the roles to be played by the CSOs/NGOs,” said Naveen Vikas Charitable Trust secretary from Bissam Cuttack Balamukundo Palo.