"COVID-19: Indian migrants being lured back to work with attractive offers", 5 August 2020

With the mass exodus of workers following India’s harsh lockdown badly impacting businesses, various companies are giving attractive offers to migrants in a bid to lure them back to work. Migrant workers say company owners have been making repeated phone calls to them and promising to provide air and train tickets, air-conditioned buses, a salary advance for two months and even increased wages...

...If the phone calls are not enough, many companies are even sending their managers and supervisors to hold direct talks with the migrant workers and convince them to return to duty. One of them is a steel company from Ballari town in southern Indian state of Karnataka, which has sent its supervisor to Rohtas district. 

 ...Reports said the company official recently visited several villages in the district and urged the workers who left the company after lockdown to return to work. The company official has promised to arrange for a special air-conditioned bus to carry them to their place of work.

 A few weeks ago, Hyderabad-based Construction Company, Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited, had brought back around 1,000 workers who had returned to Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh after lockdown. That happened after the company paid for their train tickets...