A migrant worker from Chhattisgarh delivered a baby by the roadside in Telangana's Medak district early Tuesday. The woman was part of a seven-member group that had begun their journey from Kukatpally in Hyderabad.
The woman was walking with her husband and other migrants along National Highway 44 to reach her home state, Chhattisgarh.
The incident took place at Japthi Shivanur village when the woman, identified as Anitha Bai, developed labour pains. With no vehicle available to shift her to the hospital, the other women accompanying her, helped her deliver the baby by the roadside.
Alerted by some locals, a police sub-inspector arranged a private ambulance and shifted the woman to a government-run hospital at Ramayampet. The New Indian Express reported that the seven-member group also had another woman who was five months pregnant and that she has also been admitted to the hospital.
"After receiving a call about the incident, the sub-inspector arranged an ambulance and both the woman and the new-born were shifted to hospital. Both of them are safe," Nagarjuna Goud, Circle Inspector, Ramayampet, told IANS.
The group of migrant workers and their families had walked for 70 kilometres as part of their journey to return home. Risking their lives, migrant workers from various parts of the country are trying to return to their home states on foot. Last month, a 12-year-old girl had died while returning to Chhattisgarh.
The girl, working in chilli fields in Telangana's Jayashankar Bhupalapally district, along with some others, walked for three days to reach her home in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. However, she collapsed and died just an hour away from her home.
A large number of migrant workers lined up at police stations in different parts of Hyderabad and other places in Telangana to register their names to return home. At Kukatpally police station in Hyderabad, the police had a tough time controlling the crowd.
The Telangana government has announced that 40 special trains will run from the state every day over the next week to send migrant workers back to their respective states.
The trains from Hyderabad, Warangal, Khammam, Ramagundam, Damaracharla and other places will go to Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states.
The government said migrant workers who have registered their names with the police stations would be allowed to travel by the special trains. The details of the travel will be given at the police stations.
Meanwhile, migrant workers in various parts of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh continued their protest on Tuesday, demanding the authorities to send them back to their home states. Workers from Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other states staged protests in the temple town of Tirupati.
There were protests in Guntur district as well. The labourers working at under-construction buildings of All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Mangalagiri staged a protest over the delay in sending them back to their homes.
Andhra Pradesh officials assured the workers that arrangements would soon be made for their travel. There are an estimated 1,100 migrant workers in Mangalagiri and surrounding villages.