Migrant workers in India on move as COVID-19 stalls world

Throwing all cautions to wind a sea of migrant workers surged at the Anand Vihar interstate bus terminal in Delhi on day 4 of the 21-day Nationwide lockdown called by the PM as a device to combat the community spread of COVID-19.

“What do we do. More than Corona, it is a hunger that will kill us,” said a labourer in Noida, who is peddling his family to his hometown Badayun in Madhya Pradesh.

Ramdhani (35) from Barabanki in UP, a construction worker in Noida is not afraid of the impending dangers from the infectious virus. He is on the road since Wednesday, hoping to reach his village than die of hunger without work.

Reetika Khera of IIM-Ahmedabad said if the government wanted to lockdown, even for a day, it should have started by announcing relief measures first .

As the nation grapples with the world’s largest lockdown, lakhs of migrant labourers across the country have pressed the panic button, marching on Yamuna Expressway bordering Delhi and Golden Triangle in Maharashtra.

Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh was forced to agree to deploy 1000 buses to send these people.

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The reverse migration for cities in Bihar continued even as Bihar government directed the Resident Commissioner of Bihar Bhavan in New Delhi to coordinate with states like Delhi, UP, West Bengal and Odisha to ensure that the returning migrant workers, were provided with food and shelter right.

A group of around 225 migrants, including a young woman and her two kids - travelled some 2,000 km from Hyderabad Telangana to Bikaner (Rajasthan), in 60 hours in three containers.

“This section (migrant labourers) is the most vulnerable one,” said Patna-based eminent social scientist, Ajay Kumar.

Desperate to stall migration, Karnataka on Saturday ordered deputy commissioners to take over one convention centre or wedding hall in every ward within the municipal corporation limits to house construction labourers and migrant workers. The government also launched a hunger helpline 155214 for these returnees.

By then, however, several hundreds of migrant workers have already begun moving. Stranded in Maharashtra and Goa, hundreds of daily wagers were seen walking back to their natives at Sambra, Modaga road in Belagavi district.

Maharashtra and Karnataka police have detained more than 500 daily wagers from Rajasthan, travelling in disguise on a Rajasthan-bound container truck. It was stopped at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border.

In Maharashtra, four people died on Saturday night March 28 after a tempo knocked them down in the dark. A similar incident on Hyderabad’s outer ring road claimed six more lives.

Avinash Kumar, Executive Director of Amnesty International India says while taking necessary steps to battle the pandemic, it is equally important to keep the well-being of the vulnerable communities central to the policies.

In Tamil Nadu, a number of labourers who were trying to catch a homeward-bound train March 22, were lodged at various community centres in Chennai. In Kerala, the government opened 4,603 camps housing 1.44 lakh migrant workers.

In Telangana, where Hyderabad alone is estimated to have about 10 lakh such workers from various states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, recorded incidents of hundreds trudging along the highways to reach their native places in the dead of the night.

Jagdish Roy, a migrant worker from western Assam's Kokrajhar said that nearly 400 workers like him from Assam and neighbouring Meghalaya are stuck in and around Padanthaza in Kerala since Kerala government asked everyone to stay indoors to avoid Coronavirus.

Migrant workers from West Bengal are also on a homecoming spree irking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who said that many workers returning COVID-19 affected states have not been screened before being sent back.

Dr Rajbans Singh Gill from Centre for Public Policy and Governance said the lockdown has badly affected the marginalized communities due to work loss, lack of food, shelter, health, and other basic needs.