DELHI: It’s around 40 degrees in the national capital. Vikral Bharadwaj just reached the city after covering almost 300 km distance on foot from Punjab’s Ludhiana.
Soon after the 19-year-old job-seeker heard the news that the Arvind Kejriwal government was arranging buses to transport those stranded in the state, he decided to set out for Delhi to reach his village in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad. He is currently staying at a shelter home in Delhi.
Dinesh Saxena, a 23-year-old migrant labourer, also reached here after travelling miles from Haryana on foot to reach his village in UP. Dinesh, who was working in a wheat field, was recently laid off by the owner.
Asha has been staying at city’s biggest shelter home at the Yamuna Sports Complex for a month now, after the housing society where she works restricted the entry of many maids like her after the national lockdown was imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The native of Uttar Pradesh’s Banda, Asha can’t wait to see her 10-year-old son who stays with her in-laws at her village.Vikral, Dinesh and Asha and hundreds of migrants like them have one thing in common — all are desperate to reach their home, no matter how, and some even vow not to return to the city.
"I studied till Class X, but failed to clear the Class XII examination as I could not study much due to a certain crisis in the family. I have not eat en a single meal in the last three days. The last 45 days of the lockdown have been the most terrifying phase for me," says Bharadwaj, who had moved to Punjab in February in search of a job.Bharadwaj says parents back home are very worried.
"The disease is so scary that if one dies, the authorities would cremate that person like an orphan as xhis/her parents may not be allowed to touch the body. Even if I die, I want to be with my parents... I will never come back to the city," a seemingly worried Bharadwaj says.
After the complete lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, there was a mass exodus of migrant workers and daily-wager labourers from cities across the country, all trying to make it home to their villages. While some managed to reach home, many are still stranded on the way and at shelter homes in Delhi.
On Saturday night, the Delhi Police detected nearly 100 migrants hiding inside two trucks in a desperate bid to reach home in Bihar, and arrested the drivers of the vehicles for illegally transporting them.
Though the central government is running special trains to ferry them and some states have operated buses to bring their residents home, the migrants have started to walk while others are riding bicycles. The rest are packing themselves into trucks to reach home.
On Sunday, 150 migrants, who were sheltered at a Delhi government facility in Nehru Vihar, were sent to their home state Punjab by bus. Since the lockdown, approximately 12,000 migrants have applied to reach their states.
"It took me five days to reach Delhi. I am thankful to the people who helped me with biscuits and snacks on my way. The owner of the field where I was working as a labourer removed me and others, forcing us to vacate the house where we were staying on rent as we were running out of money. I had no other options left but set out for home on foot," Saxena says.
The Delhi government has begun the process of sending migrant workers temporarily living at its shelters in the city back to their home states. More than 1,000 migrant workers from Madhya Pradesh and 1,200 from Bihar were sent home by trains last week.
Till date, around 2,600 people have been sent to Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab. Since last week, the Delhi government has been doing an extensive survey at different night shelters and temporary arrangements for people who are stranded.
According to an official, the Delhi’s first priority is to send those who are staying at shelter homes since they are homeless and jobless at the moment. Those who were found stranded in Delhi were brought to the Yamuna Sports Complex, converted temporarily into housing for those in need.
"I am here and my child is with my in-laws in Banda. Days before we were about to leave for our home, the lockdown was announced. I just want to meet my boy," says Asha, staying at the sports complex.
People staying at shelter homes are mostly those move from villages to work in the cities as domestic helpers, drivers and gardeners, or as daily-wagers on construction sites, building malls, flyovers and homes, or as street vendors.
Within a few days of the lockdown, many factories and firms either cut the salaries of their workers or terminated them. With their livelihood grinding to a halt and meagre savings running out fast, they decided to return to their village.
On March 28, they heard the Delhi government was arranging buses for them and scores of migrants, mostly labourers, thronged the Anand Vihar bus station, creating chaos and violating social-distancing norms.
In order to prevent any such a situation again, Kejriwal made numerous appeals to migrants to stay in Delhi and directed his officials to make arrangements for their food and shelter. The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIP), the prime agency engaged in taking care of the homeless in the city, has carried out a survey to find out migrants from different states.
The report has been submitted to the state nodal officer and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) to take further decisions on the movement of migrants.
The Delhi government has issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) for moving the migrants out of the national capital based on the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Under the SOP, a state nodal officer has been appointed to overlook the entire process.
Further, all the additional district magistrates along with the additional district commissioners, civil defence volunteers and health department officials are executing the plan.
However, the entire process was hit a row after the Bihar and Delhi governments were engaged in a war of words over train fares of migrants. The controversy erupted when Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai said fare of all 1,200 migrants on board a train for Muzaffarpur in Bihar will be paid by the Arvind Kejriwal government.
Bihar Water Resources Minister Sanjay Jha accused the Delhi government of resorting to 'cheap populist politics" over the train fare. He posted a letter from Rai asking the Bihar government to reimburse the train fare spent by the Delhi government to the tune of Rs 6.5 lakh.
Amrunisa, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi, is stuck along with her daughter, son-in-law and a two-year-old grandson at Sarai Kale Khan. They are yet to reach their home despite several attempts.
"My husband used to work at a garment shop. He lost his job after the shop was shut down recently. There is no money to buy ration or to pay the house rent. How will we pay the rent once the lockdown is lifted? We have heard that the government is providing train and bus facilities for migrants. But the police are neither allowing us to go home nor shifting us to any shelter home," the 50-year-old housewife says.