Woes mount, migrants stare at long road to normalcy
nNEWDELHI: After the government announced an extension of the national lockdown till May 3, distress among stranded workers and the unemployed is rising. State governments have been asked to provide relief to stranded workers but not allow them to move back across state borders to their villages.
Here are some snapshots from the margins.
YEARNING FOR HOME
“My wife suddenly gets up from sleep around midnight and starts crying. She is missing our daughter and two sons who are with my parents in my village,” said Vishal Misare, 28, a migrant worker from Balaghat town in Madhya Pradesh.
Misare is one of 48 construction workers from Madhya Pradesh now living at a wedding venue on the outskirts of Hyderabad. They tried to leave the camp on Monday night but were brought back by the police.
Misare has exhausted the money he had earned from February through the middle of March. “I am penniless,” he said, claiming that the ₹500 promised by authorities (Central government) has not been given. “We were given 5kg of rice and a kilo of dal last month.” Ludhiana district officials said they were providing best possible facilities in these “tough” conditions.
Like Misare, a landless labourer, there are hundreds in labour camps across India, who are yearning to go back to their villages, as they can get work in agriculture fields or under the MGNREGA, both allowed from April 15.
Last week, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao asked migrant workers to not worry as the state government would not allow anybody to suffer from hunger. “It is for their benefit that we are asking them to stay back wherever they are. If they have any issues, they can bring it to the notice of the authorities and they will solve them,” he said.
PENDING WAGES
For one week, Rajkumar, 28, a steel factory worker in Punjab’s Ludhiana has been entreating his employer to pay his wages. His brother is suffering from tuberculosis and he needs money to support his family.
“After a week of struggle and making repeated rounds, my employer paid me a month’s wages while two month’s pay was pending. He did not even pay me for overtime,” he said.
For the past three days, labourers in Sahnewal, Machhiwara and Sherpur Kalan in Ludhiana have hit the streets, demanding to go back to their villages.
Ludhiana deputy commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal said thousands of ration kits were distributed and factory owners urged to not slash wages. “The helpline numbers are active 24 hours, food and ration are being provided to the needy and all efforts are being made to see the migrants do not suffer,” he said.
RENTAL DEMAND
Ghaneswar Behera, 29, an assembly line operator working with a Gurugram auto major, paid whatever money he had as pending rent for single room on Friday and is now wondering how he will feed his family.
Having no work for 21 days, Behera, with four other families, booked railway tickets to return to Odisha, thinking that the lockdown will be lifted on April 15. As the lockdown was extended, the landlord came knocking.
“The house owner asked me to pay or leave,” said Behera, leaving him with no option but to give ₹5,000 of the ₹7,000 he had to the landlord.
Behera is left with just ₹ 2,000 to run his household of five people, and little certainty of employment. The employers have asked workers to submit their body temperatures daily to the contractor. “We don’t have enough money to buy vegetables, how will we buy a thermometer?” Behera said.
WALKING BACK
“We walked for over 12 hours before we got a lift from a truck driver who dropped us here. I hope for another lift, otherwise we will cover the journey on foot,” said Naushad Sheikh, a daily wage worker in Ghaziabad, who has walked from Delhi to Lucknow. His destination is Bhadohi in eastern Uttar Pradesh, still 280km away.
The 19 year old, having just ₹1,500 with him, had decided to stay put in Ghaziabad but changed his mind when the lockdown was extended.
On April 14, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the lockdown till May 3, Sheikh packed his belongings in a backpack, covered his face with a handkerchief and left Ghaziabad.
The decision to extend the lockdown has led to another exodus of migrant workers.
On his way, Sheikh met seven other daily wagers and the group reached Lucknow together after 24 hours on foot on Wednesday evening. “We saw many labourers returning home,” said Shyam Gautam, 24, a mason, returning to Sultanpur with Sheikh. “Many more will do the same. We can’t survive in cities anymore.”
FINALLY HOME
“Walking 250km on an empty stomach was arduous,” said Ram Achal, 25, sitting outside his home in his village in Bahraich district, recalling his travel from a construction site in Kanpur.
He completed the 14-day quarantine period before he was allowed to enter the village, a protocol implemented by states to isolate migrant labourers. Despite the trauma and pain, Achal, a landless labourer, said the village was like “heaven”.
Manna Lal, 48, who had led them on the walk, was not nearby. “He is now obsessed with swimming in the river. He eats, swims, stays home and does nothing. All of us are just idling around.”
But, if the fear of Covid-19 continues, he and other villagers will have to take up farm work. “Surviving here is also not easy.”
(With inputs from Srinivasa Rao Apparasu, Aneesha Sareen Kumar, Pankaj Jaiswal, Chandan Kumar, Debabrata Mohanty)