The 11 labourers from Jharkhand, who have been lodged in a government-run quarantine centre in Rayagada in southern Odisha since April 18 following their arrest, are yet to be released.

Though their mandatory 14-day quarantine period ended on May 2 their ordeal is far from over. No one is prepared to listen to their appeals to be freed and sent home. “If we step outside this centre we will face legal action and put back here again. But back home our families are suffering in our absence. We have been speaking to our family members over phone. They have stopped eating,” said Pramod Kumar Ram, who hails from Chatania village under Lamri Kalan police station in Jharkhand.

Interestingly all of them have tested negative for Covid-19 but are still being held in the quarantine centre. “What is our fault? Are we criminals? We just want to go home. Why don’t they allow us to go? We don’t want to run away like our some of our friends who fled a quarantine centre in this Rayagada district,” said Ram looking helpless.

To avoid being caught, these labourers had skipped roads and trudged along railway tracks for about 600 km from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh to reach Jharkhand. But their luck ran out in Rayagada where they were spotted by a police patrol and arrested on April 18.

The group worked in a construction company in Vijayawada and lost their jobs when the nationwide lockdown started in the wake of corona pandemic. “Every time we approach the authorities here they ask us to talk to our district collector in Jharkhand. We are poor and uneducated people and don’t even know who our district collector is. And why should he take our call?” asked Ram adding that many in the group were beginning to show signs of mental imbalance.

Sunil Choudhury, another labourer who hails from Manjhigon, Garhwa, in Jharkhand, said: “Some officials have asked us to arrange money so that they can organise transport to send us home. But they don’t understand that it is impossible for us to arrange money after remaining jobless for nearly two months and then spending 14 days in the quarantine centre. No one understands our problem. Even they don’t understand our language properly. ”

Divisional labour Commissioner, Rayagada, Prashant Tripathy told The Telegraph: “There are a number of people from Jharkhand stuck in the district following the nationwide lockdown. We are taking steps to send them back. One batch of labourers from Jharkhand has already been dispatched home. After the Jharkhand government sends more buses we will send back rest of them. We hope that all of them should be back in their home state within a week.”

Sources said more than 70,000 labourers from other states are stuck in Odisha and waiting to be sent home.

“The situation has become a bit chaotic because of lack of coordination between the states. A monitoring committee should be constituted at the state and central level to facilitate the movement of labourers stranded in various parts of the country. What is being done for them is not sufficient and if things continue in this vein it may take at least one month to send these labourers back to their home states,” admitted a top official.