Following the coronavirus outbreak, the railway stations and Anand Vihar and Kashmiri Gate Inter-state bus terminals (ISBT) have now become home to migrant labourers and rickshaw pullers who spend their sleepless nights, hoping restoration of transport services so that they can return home.
Interestingly, most of them started walking towards their respective States by foot. “What can we do in such a situation except taking a call ourselves? Waiting in open night in hope of situation to get improved is better than walking towards our home states. It may take 10 to 15 days to reach at homes but considering circumstances, we have decided to go-ahead,” said a daily wager, who is staying at ISBT for last couple of days in a hope that he would get a transport for his native house in Uttar Pradesh.
Hailing mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, these labourers are unable to pay rent and these workers had no choice except to vacate accommodation with a little money left in their hand to survive. “We labourers are paid on daily basis. With no work it was not possible for me to pay next month rent for my house in JJ cluster at Rangpuri so only option was to leave for home. We have limited money with us now,” said Ramesh Kumar (37), a native of districr Sitapur in Bihar.
Forced by unprecedented situation, these migrant labourers are feeling trapped with no one paying heeds towards their plight. Many among them are dependent on each other to survive while some of them have started visiting the nearest overcrowded shelters to have food and return back at the same open premises, fearing that they can also catch the deadly coronovirus infection.
“We around 10 to 12 people including children. The day lockdown was announced we all packed our luggage and left for the bus stand but when we reached here, the bus services were suspended, leaving us with no other option but to spend our nights here,” said Bhure Lal (43), who used to work as a laborer in city.
“Most of us had left towards their homes on foot due to unavailability of transport system. There is no food and even roof, so what would one do. I have two children but I can’t walk towards Kanpur along with them on foot,”said Vijay, a resident of Kanpur who worked as a daily wager in Delhi.
“Though we face issue while staying at bus stand and Railways stations as police keeps on removing us from here. But where do we find shelter as shelters homes in city are also full and we don’t have money even to afford a house to stay in. We only go to shelter homes for food,” said Vijay in hushtone.
“I used to work in a plastic godown located at Samaypur area. I have not been going to work since the last 6 days. I belong to Muzaffarpur , Bihar but now cannot even travel to reach home due to this lockdown,” said Sanjay Choudhary, a daily wager.
“Here we ourselves do not have money to survive. All we are worried about is our families to whom we used to send money and are not been able to now. Most of our(workers) families are dependent on us. Spending every penny or saving we have is becoming difficult for us,” said Choudhary.
Another dailywager, Dara Singh who used work in at polythene bags factory stated that he don’t have money due to which it’s really difficult to survive. “I got little saving which in this situation I need to get it to my family. Our families back home will die of hunger. We request the government to come forward to help us out,” said Singh who belongs to Giridi area of Jharkhand State.
Migrant workers are also facing double trouble as neither they have information on how to prevent themselves from this coronavirus pandemic nor do they have financial assistance to survive this lockdown from the government.
Earlier on Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had proposed to provide assistance of RS 5000 each to construction worker as a sign of relief. However the workers from other fields appreciated this move but asked for similar relief for themselves.
“Why just construction workers? The government should also look after the other sections of labourers. While they should also educate us as to how can we protect ourselves from this virus,” Dara Singh said.
Meanwhile, there are long queues at Shelter homes across the city for food, which has also created a challenge for the authorities due to Coronavirus outbreak.