Over 160 retrenched workers among 177 to land in Chandigarh

Sanjay Bumbroo
Tribune News Service
Mohali, June 15

Gaganjit Singh is relieved to be back in India. It’s been more than two months since his company in Dubai, where he was employed as a mechanic, let him go and he has since been stranded there because of lockdowns enforced to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Gaganjit, a resident of Moga, is one 161 workers of the same company to have landed at the Chandigarh International Airport---part of a group of 177 evacuees who were brought back to India on Monday.

Driven almost to a point of closing down because of the global economic crisis, the company laid off 350 people, he claimed---a number he says includes carpenters and mechanics. The 161 people who came back were only one batch of the company’s former workers, he says---200 more are waiting to fly home from Dubai.

Gananjit’s co-passenger and colleague at the company, Lakhbir Singh was also one of them many returning after having lost their jobs. The company had been providing for their lodgings and food, and even paid for the flight home, but the loss of an income has brought them under severe stress, he says.  

Of the 177 passengers who landed in Chandigarh, 168 were from Punjab, two each from Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and one from Uttarakhand.

Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL) spokesman said Punjab’s health team screened the passengers, before their own state governments received them. 

They will be quarantined according to government protocols, officials said.

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