When the district administration asked if the cathedral and its schools could accommodate migrant workers, Father J.B. Crasta didn’t have to think twice.

Rosario Cathedral in Mangalore is now putting up in its three schools and auditoriums hundreds of migrant workers who are arriving in the city to catch their train home.

Since Wednesday, when it opened its doors to them, the church has provided shelter to more than 800 migrant workers in transit and more are on their way.

“The district officials asked if we could accommodate the poor workers who were struggling without proper food and accommodation,” Fr Crasta, parish priest and rector of the cathedral, told The Telegraph on Friday.

“We provide the accommodation and all the basic amenities such as a place to sleep and washrooms, while the district administration feeds them.”

The local administration had decided to move the migrant workers, scattered across Dakshina Kannada and neighbouring districts, to Mangalore city from where they would board their special trains.

“These boys don’t stay here for long. Basically we are just providing a transit home so that they get a few days’ rest before taking the train,” Fr Crasta said.

He said the workers usually arrived extremely tired.

“We are glad we have been of some help to these poor people who need a lot more assistance in times like this. I understand they have been unemployed since the lockdown and their families back home are in distress,” the priest said.

About 400 migrant workers whom the church had accommodated left for Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. On Friday, there were “200 to 300” there, Fr Crasta said.

The district administration has been providing buses for the workers to travel to the railway station.

While special trains for the migrant workers in Bangalore began running from May 4, the labourers stranded in Mangalore and its neighbourhood had to wait till May 9.

The May 9 train was run after hundreds of workers agitated at Mangalore railway station on May 8. The same day, 120 workers were stopped while trying to go home in two trucks that were returning to Haryana after unloading their cargo. On Wednesday, over 1,000 migrant workers were stopped from setting off on foot for their villages, hundreds of kilometres away.

Local people in Bantwal near Mangalore had alerted the officials, who eventually persuaded the labourers to abort their dangerous journey and wait for trains.