Coast-to-coast commute for the villagers of Odisha
The Hindu
For a growing number of migrant workers, the 2,000 km bus journey to factories in Kerala has become routine
Bharat Behera has just returned from a long bus journey covering 2,000-km — from India’s southwestern coast to its eastern coast. And, no, it was not an adventure trip.
Mr. Behera’s coast-to-coast bus trip from the industrial hub of Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district of Kerala to the nondescript village of Bagapatia — a rehabilitation colony for climate refugees in Odisha’s Kendrapara district — was unthinkable and unheard of two years ago and was spurred by the COVID pandemic.
With hundreds of youth from Odisha getting ready to migrate to plywood industries of Kerala every year, buses, which were once hired by desperate migrant workers during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, have now become the vehicle of choice and livelihood for them.
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