In a good sign for Punjab’s struggling industrial sector, some of the migrants have started “changing their minds” and opting to stay in Punjab rather than going to their native places.
As per rough estimates, nearly 30 percent of the migrants, who have registered themselves on the state government’s special portal to go back to their home towns, failed to turn up at the time of departure on Thursday at Mohali and Amritsar. In fact, many of them have refused to go back to their native places when the respective district administrations contacted them.
Describing the development as “a good omen”, Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan said that refusal of people to go back “is an indication that we are tip-toeing towards normalcy”.
Dayalan said that 35 percent less than those who had registered themselves on the state government’s portal turned up for departure.
“A total of 1188 people were contacted a day before for confirmation of departure plan, but 25 percent declined to go while another 10 percent did not turn up at the railway station even after confirmation,” said Dayalan adding that the Administration then had to mobilize the ones in reserved or in waiting list and facilitated their departure to complete the number of seats.
It was the first special Shramik Train carrying migrant labourers of Uttar Pradesh that chugged off from the Mohali Railway Station on Thursday. Before that, Shramik trains from Jalandhar and Ludhiana have taken a sizeable number of migrants to their home towns in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Mohali Deputy Commissioner said that total 1288 workers, who came from Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh for working in Mohali, headed for their native district in the non-stop train with no intermittent stoppage before Hardoi.
Dayalan said that the permission to resume labour intensive construction work and industrial operations has reduced the threat of losing an earning opportunity and will check mass exodus.
In an appeal to the migrants, Dayalan said: “Since the normalcy is being restored gradually, any migrant except those in acute distress, who don't want to go back, are welcome to stay back in the district”.
He said that registration on the portal doesn’t imply that they have to compulsorily leave. “They can always choose to stay back and work,” he added.
At the same time, it has been learnt that about 20 per cent of the migrants in Amritsar also changed their mind to return to their home towns when a Shramik Train, with nearly 800 migrant workers on board, left to Gonda from Amritsar on Thursday.
A senior government official told The Pioneer that the migrant population wanted to go back to their home towns when there was complete curfew in place, and everything was halted. “But now, as we are facilitating the industries to open up and resume their operations, they are seeing it as an opportunity to restart their lives here, once again star earning and leading a normal life,” added the official.
More than 10 lakhs persons, with maximum of around six lakhs from Ludhiana alone, wanted to go to their home states from Punjab, and have registered on the State Government’s portal.
The official said that the mass exodus of migrants would get in the way of the State Government’s plans of resuming industrial operations as it would not only lead to labour shortage, but also push up the production cost as hiring new labour would be more expensive.