Flight transporting migrants to Ranchi gathers support

After news of a group of former National Law School of India University (NLSIU) students chartering a flight to ferry migrants from Mumbai to Ranchi went viral, several airlines have approached them to offer their services.

“We plan to organise more flights, perhaps to underserved places like Odisha or Jharkhand again,” says corporate lawyer Priyanka Roy, one of the coordinators of the initiative. “We will speak to the airlines to see who can give us the best deal.”

It’s a win-win for both. The migrants get to go home in the quickest and safest way possible. The cash-strapped airlines receive their full charter fare, regardless of whether they fly one person or a hundred, and some good press. The NLSIU alumni had raised Rs 12.5 lakh through their networks of former students, many of whom live abroad, to charter an Air Asia flight.

Some 60 donors had contributed to the cause. Now many others have also contacted the group wanting to replicate the initiative to help stranded migrant workers.

The flight, carrying 174 passengers, took off from Sahar airport for Ranchi at 6 am on Thursday. A lot of hard work had gone into it. The alumni had to, for instance, convince daily wage earners — who perhaps had never even imagined taking a flight — that the plan was a legitimate one. “In the very first call that I made, a labourer asked me, ‘Wahan pahuch ke dhoka to nahin hoga (I hope this will not turn out to be a hoax)?’ It was heartbreaking,” says Delhi-based NLSIU alum and coordinator Shyel Trehan. “The migrants have been put through so much, we couldn’t have let them down.”

A core team of alumni – all from the 2000 batch, which had come up with the idea — set up a ‘control room’. Each of the 8-10 volunteers attached themselves to a migrant family to talk them through fears and concerns, make sure they received their e-tickets on their phone, and managed to arrive at the airport by 2 am on Thursday. “They were spread all across the city,” says Trehan. “Some were living in camps or slums, some in far off construction sites. We organised taxis and buses in the middle of the night to bring them to the airport. Most didn’t even have a single rupee left, having been out of work for so many weeks. They just kept thanking us for paying their passage home,” she said. The group had first decided to organise a bus but then discovered that a flight costs only marginally more. “A bus from Mumbai to Bihar would cost Rs 2 lakh, and we would have had to arrange for at least five buses to transport 200 people ,” says Trehan. “A flight made more sense.” They had to bear the costs of things like ground handling charges at the airport, which were not waived despite requests.

There was considerable crossstate coordination required too. “We spoke to the Jharkhand government to make sure that once the migrants reached Ranch, last-mile connectivity was provided to each of them to their village,” said Roy.

On Thursday, shortly after the flight touched down at Ranchi, the NLSUI network was flooded with grateful messages and photos of migrants on their way home. “It’s a question of dignity. Why shouldn’t we allow people to move within their own country with dignity? Why should they have to beg, struggle and even die just to get home?” asked Roy. “We also wanted to get the message out there that this relief can be made an institutional process. Not just during a pandemic but also in any kind of calamity.” Clearly, this group of lawyers takes pro bono to a whole new level.

It’s a question of dignity. Why should migrants have to beg, struggle and even die just to get home?–Priyanka Roy, one of the coordinators