BENGALURU: A different kind of tragedy is unfolding at the SMVT station in Baiyappanahalli. With five trains heading towards eastern India cancelled since June 2 following the Odisha accident, hundreds are stranded at the station, clueless how long they will be here.
Coffee plantation workers, construction workers and home interior workers are among those heading home as it is the rainy season and they will get work in paddy fields for the next two months while a few are dashing back for an emergency. Two NGOs and a trade union are helping them out and the labour department joined them later on Saturday evening.
VM Prashanth, working in the construction business, and his brother-in-law were anxious. Prashanth was going home after 18 months.
“My mother’s health has deteriorated completely. We booked a tatkal A/C ticket on the Guwahati Express to rush to our house in New Jalpaiguri. Our 11. 40 pm train got cancelled on Friday night. We are completely desperate to go home and do not know when the next train will be run,” he said. Ameen and a group of friends, employed at a coconut powder factory in Tumakuru, reached SMVT station at 10 am.
“We left Tumakuru at 7 am to be well in time for our 2.15 am train to Howrah,” said his co-worker Mohammed Tanveer. “It is after one year that we are going home and the train has been cancelled now,” Aneen said. “Railways cancelled our tickets and refunded our money. We have booked reserved tickets for a morning train which goes till Darbanga.” He added that they got food and water from a group distributing them.
Around 20 people were lying down with their luggage as pillows. “We are employed in construction business and other jobs and belong to the same village. We all decided to go home for two months to cash in on money we can make by working in paddy fields,” said Shaka Lal.
NGOs Mercy Mission, Emergency Response team and AICCTU are helping them out by giving food kits, water and running a medical camp here. Tanveer Ahmed of Mercy Mission told TNIE, “Many are coffee plantation workers from Chikamagaluru and Kodagu heading home. We have supplied 1,800 lunches in the afternoon and will be providing dinner now.”