Telangana: Drivers Of Free Ambulance Service Allegedly Take Money From Family Of Deceased Migrant Workers

The Telangana government promised free ambulance service for migrant workers, however, a recent incident suggests that the deceased’s’ relatives are allegedly being denied the benefit.

Sherla Harish Kumar took the ambulance service meant for transporting bodies of dead migrant workers. He has to transport his father’s body to Adilabad. to their hometowns from the Hyderabad airport. While the service is supposed to be free, he had to shell out a sum of Rs 1,500. “Everyone pays us for the trip,” the driver reportedly told him.

The service providers hired on contract are offered up to Rs 10,000 per ambulance trip to anywhere in the state by the Telangana government, and the facility can be availed only if the deceased migrant worker was from a Below Poverty Line (BPL) household.

Activists who work for the rights of Gulf migrants in the state say that it is immoral to ask for a tip when a family is grieving.

Most People Not Aware Of The Service

Harish had availed the service to transport the body of his father, Sherla Jalandhar, who passed away on August 1 in Bahrain due to a stroke. He had to transport the body from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad’s Shamshabad to Girnoor village in Adilabad.

Harish wrote to the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao about having to pay despite the ambulance service being free.

“It was raining the day my father’s body arrived at the airport in the morning. They released the body to us only by 6 pm. It was tough to drive in those conditions and the trip took longer than the usual three hours. We reached only by 2 am,” The News Minute quoted Harish as saying.

Although the service was free, he himself offered the driver Rs. 500 out of goodwill. The driver began asking for more. To pay off the driver, Harish had to collect money from three different people, late at night.

Claiming that it was the first such complaint reported to them, Srisai Ambulance Service, which operates the free ambulance service on a contract basis, said that they apologised to the deceased’s son, returned the money and terminated the driver from service.

Gulf migrants rights activist Mandha Bheem Reddy, however, said that this was a common practice, and the ambulance service owner didn’t take action whatsoever despite the issue being reported.

He added that some drivers even take up to Rs, 2,500 from grieving families and that the migrant community is not aware of the services they are entitled to.

Although the facility has been available for over a decade now, most people are unaware of its existence. The service is extended only if a formal request is made.

The NRI Cell has officially helped bring the bodies of around 518 migrants back to the state since July 2014.

“Unofficially, another 100 bodies may have arrived. Of these cases, around 30 are suicides. Most deaths are attributed to heart attacks due to harsh weather conditions, and lack of proper food and sleep. In some cases, where a person injured in a road accident gets admitted to hospital and dies, the hospital authorities declare it as cardiac arrest. This is done to avoid the payment of compensation of Rs 15 lakh, which the worker is eligible for,” said Chitti Babu, NRI wing officer.

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