Santosh Steels Trustees Helping Stranded People During Covid 19 Lockdown

Even though the coronavirus toll in India appears to be low, the government is reporting about 2900 active cases and 68 deaths in a country of 1.3 billion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has imposed one of the world’s strictest and biggest lockdowns, advising all residents to stay in their homes for 21 days as of March 25, with a few exceptions for essential workers in hospitals, food shops, and law enforcement.

The lockdown has left tens of millions of migrant workers unemployed. They are often from rural areas but live most of the year in India & megacities, serving as day laborers, construction workers, or domestic help. Indian authorities need to urgently adopt measures to protect the country's poorest and most vulnerable people if COVID-19 containment and relief measures prove inadequate to the migrants. The lockdown has already disproportionately hurt marginalized communities due to loss of livelihood and lack of food, shelter, health, and other basic needs. The government does have a responsibility to protect the health and well-being of the population, but some of these steps have left tens of thousands of out-of-work migrant workers stranded, with rail and bus services shut down.

Millions of migrant laborers in various Indian cities live and eat where they work and the sudden shutdown of business has appended their lives. This outbreak has led migrants to begin long journeys on foot to get to their home which was 1000s of km away. There are various groups of people who have started their journey from various cities. Some groups were passing from Vapi where SantoshTrustees stay. There were around 2500 people who started their journey to their homes. We provided them with water and food while we also tried to arrange some transport service to help them get to their respective states. Most of the passing people that we helped were coming from Mumbai and Pune and their destination was Rajasthan.

At Santosh Steels, we have always been supportive of our society. It was our privilege to serve them. Together, we can support these migrant people. Time to show some mercy and compassion among our fellow Indians. Goodness, and being compassionate is something that never fails. Serving fellow Indians with everything possible gives us relief and our responsibility towards society

- A message from Santosh Steels Trustee. Let's Beat Covid-19 Together. Let us Keep Humanity Alive.