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Migrant workers wait in the scorching heat, sleep on gunny bags, waiting for a chance to go home
The Radha Soami Satsang Bhawan has made arrangements for food and water and put up a tent for them, but long waiting periods for trains is making things difficult for the men and their families
Five-year-old year old Ajay Pandey had fallen asleep in the scorching heat outside the Radha Soami Satsang Bhawan in Zirakpur.
The space outside the Bhawan was their refuge as Pandey and his family of 10 waited for a train from Mohali Railway Station close by to take them home to Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh.
“We have been camping here for the last six days. There are too many people registered for travel by train so we are waiting for our chance,” said Pandey. What mattered was that he was going back to his village and that his parents, Lallan, a factory hand, and Shakuntala, a domestic helper, had not been working since the March-end lockdown to prevent the transmission of Covid-19.
“We get food but we have to wait for quite some time for it,” said Pandey.
Though people at the Radha Soami Satsang Bhawan had set up a tent for the workers and organised food and water for them, children like Pandey were sleeping on the gunny bags spread out near the roads, using dupattas to cover themselves.
During the day many people sat hunched up near some barricades outside the bhawan to protect themselves from the blazing sun.
Guddu, who worked in a packaging factory in Dera Bassi and was waiting with his family of five for a train to Bihar and his final destination Chapra, said: “We have given up our rented accommodation and handed over the keys to the landlord, who virtually threw us out for not paying rent.”
Mukesh, waiting to go to Lucknow, had been asked by his factory owner to leave. “They had initially paid us wages but we have been out of work for two months now. All the money has been spent, we have nothing left to eat, so the only option is to go home.”
Showing his mobile phone, he said, “ I have got registered but have yet to get a ticket, so I will wait.”
On options to stay back in Punjab, the workers said some people who had tried to go back to their rented homes were not allowed to enter by the people there. The police had been called. “They will take us to quarantine centre so it is better to stay here and wait,” said Babbu Lal, a construction worker who lived in Baltana and was returning to his home to Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh.
On handling the return of migrants to their homes, Kuldeep Bawa, sub divisional magistrate, Dera Bassi, said, “A very large number of migrants got registered from Dera Bassi subdivision but the number of seats is limited. We cannot send all at once but we are trying to accommodate as many migrants we can. They refuse to move from here.”
