No jobs, fear of 3rd wave may keep migrants away
Bajrang Yadav (45), a worker at a gearbox manufacturing factory in west Delhi’s Naraina, along with a few other labourers, boarded a crowded bus from the Anand Vihar interstate bus terminus (ISBT) on April 19 to leave for his village in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh.
Delhi was witnessing an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases, and a lockdown was to come into effect on April 20. The government’s assurance that the curbs will be lifted soon could not keep Yadav back.
Around five weeks since, Delhi is still under a lockdown, and its impact has been that the case trajectory has reducing significantly. Chief minister Arvind
Kejriwal suggested on Sunday that a phased relaxation was likely to start from May 31.
In the interim, life has changed for Yadav. He lost his elder brother to Covid-19.
Though his wife and 13-year-old son recovered from the viral infection, they are still on medicines. “I will not be able to return to Delhi anytime soon. I have to be with my family till they recover. I have exhausted all my savings on their treatment. I will try getting some work here for the time being,” said Yadav. Ravi Kumar, who works in a cardboard factory; Brajkishore Tiwari, who works with a catering contractor; Hiralal Jha, a self-employed plumber; and Ehsaan Ali, a construction worker, are among thousands of migrant workers who left the city in the past one month. More than 800,000 workers left the city in buses from the three ISBTs in the first four weeks of the lockdown, said a government report first published in HT on Saturday. There are many more which the government could not keep count of -- people leaving on trains, and also those leaving after the first four weeks. Now, with the infection spreading to villages, workers are caught in a web of death and despair.
Experts feared it may take a while before the workforce returns. Debolina Kundu, professor at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, said: “It is unlikely that migrant workers will return to Delhi as soon as the lockdown is lifted. A revamp of the health sector with assured social security benefits and employment guarantee, in addition to cheap housing and assured food rations, are the measures needed to make most cities functional again.”