Uttar Pradesh: Long road of struggle ahead for jobless migrant workers

PRAYAGRAJ: A month ago, Madhya Pradesh native Mahajan had flocked to Prayagraj in search of a job as a daily wager along with his wife and six-year-old son. He didn’t have to look for long as he soon ended up working at a construction site and even started saving to send money back to his ailing parents.
Just weeks later, the contractor who hired him said that he couldn’t pay him any more as the government has put all construction on hold in the wake of the lockdown announced in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.Mahajan and his family were among the group of eight who were heading back to their hometown Suhagi in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, after being laid off.
“The contractor says he would not be able to pay me anything for the next three months. We have nothing to do here. Hence, we are going back to our village,” said Mahajan.
TOI spotted hundreds of migrant labourers returning to their hometowns after being stranded in the city with little to no money following the lockdown. With train and bus operations suspended during the 21-day lockdown, the group has no option but to cover the distance on foot. Mahajan and his wife take turns to hold their son Shivam who gets tired easily. In his 20s, the youth isn’t too hopeful about what awaits him back home. “There are hardly any jobs in my village. I don’t know how I will look after my family,” he rued.
It’s the same scene every few kilometres — exhausted men, women and children walking for miles, carrying their belongings bundled in sacks and sometimes a toddler or two on their shoulders. The crisis hasn’t been any kinder to the elderly who are left in a lurch and have to join in the exodus despite their fragile bones. Near the city limits, Amal leads a group of six men who have been walking from Shahdol, around 300 kilometes away, and are going to Bareilly. “We left our workplace on Thursday with a heavy heart after the factory where we worked shut down. I wanted to stick around and see if I could find something else. However, I had to leave when I realised there is no work,” said the landless daily wager. A group of Good Samaritans who distributed food packets in Prayagraj was the only bright spot on his gloomy day. The water and food they gave him the strength to keep walking.
TOI also came across a group of around 100 labourers who were going towards Satna and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, near Sulemsarai in Dhoomanganj. “As all construction has stopped in the city and even small businesses like dhabas and roadside eateries have shut, we are forced to go back, ” said Sandeep, a youth who whitewashed homes and buildings for a living. He and his four brothers were leaving the city along with their families.
Help arrived soon after district magistrate Bhanu Chandra Goswami and SSP Satyarth Aniruddh Pankaj were informed about the labourers’ plight. Dhoomanganj police served the group food. While police told them that they were welcome to stay at the shelters set up by the district administration during the lockdown, the latter chose to continue their journey.
“Sir, please don’t stop us. We don’t want to stay here because this we will not be able to earn anything for the next two weeks. If we don’t earn, how will our families survive?” said Govind, one of the labourers of the group. However, later in the evening, the labourers finally agreed to stay back after the SSP assured them that the administration would send them back to their hometowns in trucks and buses on Sunday. Meanwhile, man local residents who ad been working in the state capital returned to Prayagraj in transport buses.