Outside a food distribution centre in the city, migrant workers queued up for their daily meals under the scorching son. All of them have been out of work for over a month now. Hailing mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, they said returning to their villages was a more suitable option for them rather than living under poor conditions in the Capital, where they came in search of livelihood. But their wait to return is getting longer day by day as there is no communication from the authorities.
For Gandhi Mandal and Ravidas, both from Bihar, a journey to the national capital every few months was a normal affair. But this time they got “stuck” in the city.
“For the last 10 years we have been coming to Delhi and most of us are daily wage labourers. We stay here for a short while — between four to nine months — and then return to our villages. The constant need to look for work is what drives us to the Capital. We got stuck here this time,” said Mandal, who reached Delhi a month before the nationwide lockdown came into force. A resident of Katihar district in Bihar, Ravidas said, “We want to return as soon as possible as our families are waiting for us. With no work and erratic food supply, how long can we continue here like this?” Domon Mandal, a native of West Bengal’s Malda district said: “We are so poor that we have to do some work or the other. If we are not getting that here, we might as well return to our families. Here we get thrashed by the police as they enforce numerous restrictions and we have nowhere to go. Though we heard that the government is willing to help us, we have not received any direct communication from authorities.”
“Whether we will return or not is something to be thought later. First we need to save ourselves from this situation,” Mandal added.
Registration woes
Some workers residing in Sriniwaspuri claimed that the police had refused to get their names registered when approached during a registration drive in neighbouring Nehru Nagar. Displaying his government ID, Dilip Paswan, a resident of JJ Indira Camp said: “We have made a list of over 100 people who are willing to return home and have kept documents like aadhaar cards ready. But no one has come to us for the registration. When we heard about registration drive in Nehru Nagar, we went there. But the police refused to register us citing some jurisdiction issue.”
At a government school near Masjid Moth, Seema, a 26-year-old daily wage labourer, said: “The government makes announcements but how do we believe unless we see the process start. If we manage to go back, there is no question of coming back in the near future. We can’t take this risk again.”