Amidst the dread of hopelessness perturbing due to Covid pandemic, NLSIU Alumni raised funds for leasing an Air Asia aircraft to bring back stranded migrant workers. As reported by LiveLaw there were as many as 174 migrant workers who were stranded in Mumbai for the last two months amid this lockdown.
This gracious act of the former students of National Law School of India University, Bangalore was appreciated by Chief Minister of Jharkhand Shri Hemant Soren. He tweeted about this, thanking the individuals, including the alumni group activist Priya Sharma and other NGOs whose efforts made this possible.
नेशनल लॉ स्कूल, बंगलोर के पूर्ववर्ती छात्रों के सहयोग एवं झारखण्ड एवं महाराष्ट्र सरकार के अधिकारियों समेत इस पुनीत कार्य में सम्मिलित सभी कोऑर्डिनेटरों के अथक परिश्रम से आज 174 मज़दूर सकुशल झारखण्ड, अपने घर लौटें। इस नेक एवं अद्वितीय कार्य के लिए मैं एलुमनाई नेटवर्क ऑफ नेशनल 1/2 pic.twitter.com/4Mkh5mf8Vk
— Hemant Soren (घर में रहें – सुरक्षित रहें) (@HemantSorenJMM) May 28, 2020
Speaking to Bar and Bench, Priyanka Roy, another NLSIU alumni involved in the initiative, said,
“We initially planned to send a small group of people on regular commercial flights. We had organized for 45 tickets, but the flight was cancelled last minute, as the Maharashtra government allowed only 25 flights per day. We went back to the drawing board to see if we can send them by bus and other modes.”
The funds to hire the commercial flight were generated by crowdfunding by NLSIU Batch of 2000 and also got support from Tata Group and Air Asia.
With the success of this project, the alumni team wish to implement this project at a larger scale. With this project has become the first citizen-driven project to evacuate the stranded passengers at this level.