At Lal Kuan, migrant workers find themselves stranded, cast away

Monday morning, Babita, a daily wager from Hoshiyarpur, and her two minor daughters left their rented house in Noida’s Sector 51 on a bicycle for a 130km long journey

Monday morning, Babita, a daily wager from Hoshiyarpur, and her two minor daughters left their rented house in Noida’s Sector 51 on a bicycle for a 130km long journey to their village in Amroha; their belongings fasted to the cycle jangled with each bump. The old bicycle was their only means of transport. The Lal Kuan intersection was deserted hours after hundreds of buses were despatched to different cities in UP.

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Throughout the day on Sunday, the Lal Kuan intersection was flooded by tens of thousands of migrant workers as the UP and Haryana Roadways operated buses in tandem to ferry stranded workers to their hometowns. By Sunday evening, the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued guidelines to the police and administration officials to vacate the intersection.

“There were no buses, so we decided to ride on bicycle to our village at Moodha (Amroha). Our money is almost finished as our landlord was adamant on taking the house rent and we had to shell out ₹3,000. Now, we’ll be lucky if we reach our village. From Garmukteshwar, we will try the route through the agricultural fields to avoid any police checks,” Babita said.

The MHA had, on Sunday, directed all state governments to ensure that landlords do not demand rent payment for one month, at least, from any worker, including migrants living in rented accommodations.

Another direction was issued to ensure arrangements of adequate number of temporary shelters and food, etc. for the poor, including migrant labourers, stranded due to a 21-day nationwide lockdown announced to check the spread of Covid-19.

The other important direction was issued for those migrant workers who had already set off for their home towns across the country from the cities they worked in. The order stated that they should be sheltered in nearby government quarantine facilities for a period of minimum 14 days, as per health standard protocol for Covid-19.

After repeated calls throughout the day, Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey responded late Monday evening saying, “We have about 130-140 migrant workers in shelter homes. At present, we can accommodate about 500 persons more,” he said.

However, Awanish Awasthi, additional chief secretary (home), during a press briefing at Lucknow, said, “We are ensuring that people who are on the roads should be taken to quarantine centres. Further, we are seeking a list of all quarantine centres in the state. The list is expected to come by Monday night. We are ensuring compliance of lockdown and ensuring that stranded people should get every care,” he said.

Mukesh Kumar, a migrant worker from Etawah who works at a copper wire melting factory in Rohtak area of Haryana, found himself stranded on the streets of Ghaziabad on Monday. He said, “I started walking two days ago and walked all along the railway tracks to reach Lal Kuan. Here, I am unable to find any bus to my hometown. I find myself stranded. I left Rohtak after my employer did not pay my salary, which was to be given on March 20. So my wife told me to leave Rohtak and come back home. Here, there is no one to guide me about the road to walk. Local civil volunteers gave me food to eat.”

Like Mukesh, many others were seen waiting on NH-9 to board buses, but were intermittently driven away by the policemen who had put up barricades and stood guard to keep movement of migrants. Police vans and personnel on bikes and their private vehicles guarded large areas along NH-9, especially the Lal Kuan intersection and its vicinity on Monday, when Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had arrived in Gautam Budh Nagar for a review meeting. The CM is likely to visit Ghaziabad, Meerut and Agra on Tuesday.

Sonu, a welder, and two of his friends who worked in Jaipur left that city on foot on Sunday to reach Lal Kuan. “We worked with a contractor who ran away and did not pay our salary. We had no money left and our ration had finished. We came to Lal Kuan but there is no bus available. At many places, police drove us away so we are just walking to reach our hometown, Muzaffarnagar,” he said.

Anmol, a native of Shahjahanpur, was sitting by NH-9 along with other migrant workers on Monday afternoon; he had only ₹150 left in his pocket. They were waiting without food, water and frantically searching for any commercial vehicle that would drop them till Bareilly.

“I came from Seelampur in Delhi where I work at a jeans stitching factory. After the lockdown, factory owner went away with his family and just gave me ₹500. Now, I am left with just ₹150 and wish to go to my village in Lodhipur, where my family has a shop. People told me to reach Lal Kuan, now I am stranded. There is no one we can ask for help,” he said.

Lal Kuan intersection is close to Ghaziabad’s border with Gautam Budh Nagar district.

On Saturday, officials had shutdown bus operation from ISBT-Kaushmabi and Anand Vihar border as thousands of migrant workers gathered to board a bus home. The operation of buses from Lal Kuan intersection ceased Sunday evening.