Summary:
The facility has 32 kitchens with cooking gas facility, eight dining rooms, 96 toilets and related facilities like laundry rooms and drying facilities, at a nominal rent for them. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government's housing project for migrant workers will be inaugurated by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday at Kanjikode in Palakkad 'Apna Ghar'-a name that strikes a chord with labourers from Hindi-speaking states-at integrated industrial and textile park at Kanjikode can house 640 labourers. The facility, completed at a cost of Rs 8.50 crore, will have all basic amenities.Labourers from West Bengal , Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa flock the state in large numbers. Two more facilities will be launched at Adimali and Perumbavoor after the inauguration of the Palakkad facility.The Bhavanam foundation under the labour and skills department initiated the project observing that the migrant workers live in poor conditions with limited access to even water and sanitation facilities.The Apna Ghar project was proposed to be implemented in areas across Kerala with high concentrations of domestic migrant labourers. An in-depth study into the migrant labourers' issue in the state by Centre for Migration and Inclusive Studies (CMID), and NGO, had found that five to eight workers live in a room paying rents ranging from Rs 600 to Rs 1,200 or even more per person.The study also found that most of the rooms had no separate kitchen and people used diesel, which is easily available, for cooking as kerosene or cooking gas is neither affordable nor available at convenience for them.To address such issues, the new housing facility being set up by the government have 64 spacious rooms with bunker beds that can accommodate 10 persons in each room..