Lockdowns in India prompt fresh exodus
India’s surging epidemic has forced both its financial and political capitals into lockdown, spurring a fresh exodus of migrant labourers fleeing the cities fearing vanishing jobs as panic rises over the ferocity of the country’s second Covid-19 wave.
The nation now has the world’s fastest-growing Covid-19 caseload, adding 259,170 new infections and 1,761 deaths yesterday, leaving it behind only the US in terms of total numbers. As virus numbers have soared more state governments have announced localised shutdowns to try and tamp down on the surge.
On Monday national capital New Delhi announced a six-day curfew after it reported more than 24,000 daily infections. The city is out of hospital beds, medical oxygen and drugs being used to treat the most critically-ill patients. Hours after the announcement, reports began emerging of thousands of the city’s poorest workers converging at the main interstate bus terminals.
At Anand Vihar bus terminal in New Delhi, Sandeep Rai, a 30-year-old driver, was one of the thousands trying to leave the city yesterday. He was trying to make his way home to his village in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh. “I have just 100 rupees [40 baht] left with me, and I don’t know how long this lockdown is going to last,” Mr Rai said. “The landlord wants rent, there are power bills to paid, where is the money? It is true the government did ask us stay back, but can you trust the government? I can’t.”
The images were reminiscent of India’s first strict lockdown in late March last year where hundreds of thousands of workers fled cities as their daily wages dried up with just a few hours of notice. Many of these people have only just returned to the cities as the economy slowly began to pick up, only to be crushed again by this second wave.
The exodus from the cities comprises migrants from villages and small towns who keep urban India moving while making less than US$2 (about 60 baht) a day — construction workers, handymen, food sellers, truck drivers and household help.
“Last year when there was a lockdown we saw migrant labour leaving the city,” Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. “I want to especially appeal to them with folded hands — this is a small lockdown. Only six days. Don’t leave Delhi. I want to reassure you the government will take care of you.”
Maharashtra, India’s wealthiest state, has seen migrant labourers leave the city since authorities issued work-fromhome orders early this month, despite the government saying it will spend 54 billion rupees to support its vulnerable citizens.