Won’t come back any time soon, say migrants as they board first train from Noida

Fifty-two days after the nationwide lockdown was imposed to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), effectively shutting down all industries and

Fifty-two days after the nationwide lockdown was imposed to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), effectively shutting down all industries and enterprises and rendering thousands of people jobless, migrant workers from Gautam Budh Nagar district boarded the first four special trains to Bihar on Saturday.

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With all interstate and interdistrict travel curtailed, many migrant workers had started walking back to their home towns in other states, unmindful of the daunting distances or the hardship of the journey. They heaved a sigh of relief on Saturday as the trains chugged in to the station to ferry them home.

The trains on Saturday left for Aurangabad, Buxar, Rohtas and Siwan districts of Bihar from Dadri and Dankaur railway stations.

“We are really happy and thankful that we got this train. We were almost losing hope of getting one and was thinking of walking back. Also, this lockdown had taught us the value of home and what’s it like being away during such a crisis. I am not returning any sooner, not even if normalcy returns next week,” Sukhendra Kumar, who hails from Aurangabad district, and lives at Sector 78, said as he boarded boarding a train at Dadri station.

Despite the high registrations of migrants from Bihar alone – around 68,000 – the turnout at stations was low. Of the 1,300 passengers registered to go to Aurangabad, only 978 showed up, even as officials held the train back for two hours and kept coordinating with families which were on their way.

For Buxar, there were about 1,300 registrations, of which only 656 boarded trains. For Rohtas, 1,524 passengers turned out from the nearly 1,600 who had registered.A total of 1,520 turned up to board the train to Siwan of the 1,600 who registered.

Officials said this could be the effect of industries reopening. The fare and food on the journey were sponsored by the district administration.

“I received a text message on my phone confirming that my wife and I got seats on this train, and this restored some faith in the system. A bus was deployed to our area that brought us here to the station, and we were not charged any fare, neither for the bus not the train. Upon screening we were given tickets, food packets, and water,” said Jitendra Pandey, a resident of Aurangabad who boarded a passenger train at Dadri along with his wife Rita Pandey and two children. Pandey, who works at a mobile company in Noida, said he will remain at his home town for at least a month or more.

Umesh Kumar, another migrant from Rafiganj, Aurangabad, worked at a shop in Noida and lived at Harola said that one of his neighbour from Buxar informed him about the online registration process last week and he received the seat confirmation on Friday. “There were a number of issues during this lockdown, like not having enough to eat, a situation I would never have faced at home,” he said.

District magistrate Suhas LY said, “We are still receiving registrations from migrant workers who wish to go home, and more trains are being arranged for all those already registered for Bihar. However, since industries have reopened, some of them have decided to stay back and they are most welcome.”

He, along with police commissioner Alok Singh, inspected the arrangements at stations and saw off the passengers. A battalion of Rapid Action Force (RAF), about 50 police personnel and 50 railway protection force (RPF) personnel at each of the stations ensured social distancing.

He added that transport arrangements will also be made for passengers from states other than Bihar and also for those from other districts of Uttar Pradesh.

“Our teams are on the ground and there are many migrants from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, etc. We will soon start the registrations for these states and make transport arrangements. Registration for interdistrict has already started,” Suhas said.

According to the health officials, the screening of passengers began around 8am while teams supervised the sanitisation of trains.

“We had 20 two-member teams screening passengers for Covid-19 symptoms. A few passengers had walked to the station and hence their body temperature was high. Those passengers were made to rest and screened again, sanitised and permitted to board the train,” Dr Sanjeev Saraswat, from the community health centre, Dadri, said. No one was found with Covid-like symptoms, the doctor said.

Meanwhile, the district administration unveiled the online link -- www.tinyurl.com/pravasi-shramik-UP -- for the migrant workers belonging to Uttar Pradesh to register. The administration will arrange transport to all 74 districts of the state.