Flow of migrants continues as administration attempts to clear

Tribune News Service
Ghaziabad/ Greater Noida, March 29

The mass exodus of migrant labourers continued unabated even on the fifth day of 21-day lockdown to combat the spread of deadly coronavirus as workers in Greater Noida and Ghaziabad have been leaving their respective construction sites in hordes.

The flow of people flocking to escape from their confines in Delhi to the comfort zone off their homes in distant places in Uttar Pradesh continued unabated.

Young and old, aged and children many of whom can at best be toddlers thronged the Kaushami Bus Depot battling both hunger, tiredness and hanging on the hope that the buses deployed by the state government would earn them a passage.

Moved by the plight of the people, a bunch of good Samaritans went about distributing bananas and water pouches to substitute for a meal to their way to the destination even as police made great efforts to instil a sense of discipline in forming a boarding line to prevent any mishap including stampede.

There simply was no space to enforce the highly advised social distancing norms amid fears that the migrants could add to the burden of district authorities to screen the fresh batches as they arrive.

The reason for the mass exodus is now familiar, factories or shops where these people were employed, closed due to the lockdown, a token or no payment of wages to those working and asked to fend for themselves.

Take the case of Umesh now eager to return to his home at Barabanki, near Lucknow. The youngster got a job just four days before lockdown and with no place, money and little hope, he heads back.

Or another of a woman with two children below three years who got turned out by a family for whom she used to cook.

“I have no place to stay, no money and two small children to take care of, I came all the way from Uttam Nagar in west Delhi...I want to return...”

There are others who belong to other states and hoping to get some means of transport while bracing for a long trek, with little food and money but with family in tow and lots of hope in desperate times.

Finding to have been fallen in acute stress, they claim that they are left with nothing to keep their soul and body together, as neither they have any work nor they have been paid of their previous dues by the companies in which they worked.

Most of them were seen walking through the lanes and by-lanes of the newly built Greater Noida (West), popularly known as Noida Extension, to reach to either neighbouring Anand Vihar Bus Terminal in Delhi or Lal Kuan Bus Terminal in Ghaziabad district of UP in the hope to get transportation to reach their native places as far as Gorakhpur, Deoria and districts of Bihar.

Manoj Yadav of Gorakhpur district, who works for one of the builders in the locality as foreman and arranges labourers for construction works, has been helping such helpless migrants by ferrying them to bus terminals on his motorbikes.

He told the Tribune: “Since I have brought them here for work and got them jobs. Now since the situation is turning from worse to worst, I have no option but to help them reach places from where they could get means to reach to their respective homes.”

Yadav was carrying Harikesh Kumar, his wife and two-year-old daughter to drop them at Lal Kuan Terminal with a hope they will get a bus to go to Deoria.

“I don’t know whether I will get some means to go back home. But even if we don’t get anything, we have no option but to start walking towards Deoria,” said Harikesh.

Deoria is around 750 km from Greater Noida.

Asked as to how they could manage to survive for last five days of lockdown, Yadav said, initially for first two days they had something to survive on their own.

“Then for next two days there was a private langar near Bishrakh police station and these people got something from there to eat. But now that has also been closed and now these people have no option but to leave. I too have no surplus to sustain their livelihood, as I am also not being paid wages by the companies after lockdown,” Yadav said.

Another migrant worker Vikram Kumar from Gorakhpur and Pappu from Deoria also had the same story to tell and thus they decided to leave their places of work at any cost without money.

“The problem is that even private bus operators are exploiting these helpless people and charging them Rs. 2,000 for a ride to Gorakhpur. Now I will drop them there at Lal Kuan Bus Terminal and then I don’t know what will happen,” Yadav said. 

At the Lal Kuan Bus Terminal, the scene appeared pathetic despite local administration trying their best to facilitate people.

A large contingent of police force has been deployed there which is trying its best to coordinate the buses and the desperate passengers, but chaos prevailed all over.

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