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On Thursday, Tamil Nadu-based writer and social activist Nityanand Jayaraman posted on Twitter a short video of a batch of migrant workers from Bengal starting for their home on bicycles, embarking on a nearly 1,700 km journey.
This was barely a few hours before Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee – who has been facing flak from the opposition for allegedly going slow on bringing back migrant workers – announced that the state had arranged for 105 trains to bring these workers home. People stranded across the country, however, seem to have lost hope.
“#MigrantsOnTheRoad Chennai Kolkata Highway. This batch of 20 left Chennai this morning for Murshidabad, WB. 1700 km. No help from govts. Public public partnership only. Courtesy Lorry drivers, dhaba bullets, people of India, ”Jayaraman wrote on Twitter.
In Bengal, right to food activist Anuradha Talwar, who has been working with stranded migrant workers in different states over the past few weeks, said migrants from Bengal were initially against the idea of walking or cycling back home and preferred to wait but are now running out of patience.
“We are in touch with these workers and most from Bengal were in favor of waiting for train services to resume. Too few from Bengal actually took to the road to walk or cycle hundreds of kilometers. But they are running out of patience due to lack of clarity over the state government’s initiatives and have started making their own arrangements, ”said Talwar.
The number of workers from Bengal who migrate to other states is estimated to be around 12 lakh. They mostly go to the southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Most of them work in the construction, zari, restaurant, sugar mill, jewelry and the garment sector.
Bengal has so far seen a very few people return from distant states on their own, whereas, people did return in groups on their own from the neighboring states of Jharkhand and Odisha.
The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
Among those who traveled several hundred kilometers on their own, was a group of construction workers from Chhattisgarh who walked and hitched rides, a middle-aged man from Tamil Nadu and a septuagenarian from Bihar who cycled the distance.
“I gave my mobile phone to a security guard at the construction site where I worked in exchange for his bicycle and a few hundred rupees. I rode throughout the day and sometimes at night too. I took rest only when I could not take the pain anymore, ”said Atiul Shah, a 23-year-old resident of South 24 Parganas district in Bengal, who returned from Salem in Tamil Nadu on April 29.
As on Thursday, 10 trains have brought back stranded migrant worker and pilgrims and several buses have brought back students stranded in Kota, Rajasthan.
Mamata Banerjee, however, has blamed other states for the plight of the migrant workers. “No one stranded in our state is getting mad to go back because we have truly treated them as our guests. But people from Bengal who got stranded in other states did not receive this gesture. We appeal to those who are returning not to go back to those states that did not take care of them in this crisis. We’ll make some arrangements for them, ”Banerjee said.
The first four of the 105 special trains that Banerjee on Thursday tweeted to have arranged, are expected to arrive with migrants from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad on Sunday. While one will reach Howrah, the rest three will go to Malda and New Cooch Behar stations.
“More than one lakh people have already returned. This includes migrant laborers, tourists, patients and students. The most, around 90,000, came on buses while some arranged their own vehicles to reach the state borders. Some came on foot, ”said Banerjee.
Opposition parties, however, accused Banerjee of being apathetic towards the migrants. “We are fed up appealing to her. Every appeal falls on deaf ears, ”said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha.
Bharatiya Janata Party state unit president Dilip Ghosh made the same allegation. “We have given the government a list of more than 4,00,000 migrant workers stranded in different states,” Ghosh said.
Some workers who were fortunate to get on board trains are unhappy with the arrangements made by the railways. On Thursday, a section of the passengers who came from Bengaluru on a New Jalpaiguri-bound Shramik Special train alleged that they faced an acute shortage of drinking water and food. They also alleged that no social distancing was maintained on the train.
Special train reaches Bengaluru from Delhi, passengers to undergo 14-day quarantine
More than 50 passengers on this train got down at Durgapur where the train stopped briefly to change the engine. They staged a protest. Later, the railway authorities had to coordinate with the state government to arrange buses for these passengers. The train was sanitized and drinking water was supplied.
The government has stuck to its stand that it would not allow a large number of workers to enter the state at one go. “We will do it in a staggered manner to ensure the virus does not spread to new areas. Every person needs to be screened and we are planning for the return of every single person, ”said chief secretary Rajiva Sinha.
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