Migrant workers throng DAC

Avneet Kaur

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Jalandhar, April 28

As many as 60 migrant labourers from the city who belong to different cities and villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been visiting the District Administrative Complex (DAC) here for the past two days to request officials to make travel arrangements for them so that they may return to their respective home towns.

They said they were running short of money as well as ration and all they want was to return home.

“We do not know when this lockdown will end. We are daily wagers, our survival depends on daily income. We don’t have savings in our bank accounts to stay here,” said Dashrath, who works as a painter and is a native of Gazipur in UP.

He said it was being two days that they were visiting the DC office in hope that the administration might listen to their pleas and would make some travel arrangement for them.

“We will again be visiting the DAC tomorrow and will keep visiting till we get an appropriate answer from the authorities, “ he said.

Dashrath said like him there were many daily wagers. Nearly 35 belong to UP, while 25 to 30 from Bihar, who are staying depressed in their rented accommodations, wanting to return home.

“We were not able to meet the authorities concerned, but we met a few people at the DAC, who suggested us to apply for online passes. We are not educated, we hardly had any idea about what is online. How we would apply then,” said another migrant labour Kashi Ram.

“It is disheartening that the government, which boast of being a ‘Gareebo ki sarkar’, has failed to take a call on travel arrangements of migrant labourers across the nation. We don’t want food or shelter, we just want to return home,” he added.

Pramod Yadav, state president, Purvanchal Jan Kalyan Mahasabha, said there was a rumour in the city two days ago that a bus had been arranged to send back migrant workers to their homes. Thus, all migrant workers thought they missed the bus, hence, they started visiting the DC office.

He said he recently had a meeting with the officials concerned and they had assured that a decision in this regard would be taken after May 3.