No work for 2 months, migrants head back to cities

RANCHI: Several migrants workers who were brought back home from other states by buses, special trains and even government-sponsored chartered flights are now returning to cities as they have been unable to find jobs in Jharkhand even two months after their.
While some are leaving for cities across India on their own arrangements, some of them have even received flight tickets by their former employers.
Sanjay Choudhary, who was working with a Mumbai-based construction company before the nationwide lockdown, recently boarded an AirAsia flight to return to the metropolis even though it continues to be a Covid-19 hotspot.
He said, “It seems that we will die whether we stay here or go back to work. If I stay home, my family will starve to death and there is a possibility of me getting infected in Mumbai. I chose to return to work as sitting idle at home is more stressful.”
Similarly, Sunil Paswan, a construction worker from Koderma, received an air ticket from his employer. Talking to TOI at Birsa Munda airport in Ranchi before boarding his flight, he said he did not have enough money to eat at home. “We got rice from a PDS shop, but we cannot continue to count on this handouts forever,” he said.
While the state government has strict norms for entering Jharkhand, there is hardly any mechanism to track who is leaving.
James Herenj, state convener of NREGA Watch (a labourer rights group), said the provisions made by the state government are not enough. “Around 1.25 lakh new job cards have been made to provide work to these migrants, but things have not moved at the ground level. Moreover, the labourers who earned Rs 500-600 per day ion cities will gett just Rs 194 for a day’s hard work if they continue to stay here and work under government schemes,” he said.
Herenj said the fear of Covid is not deterring people from leaving as they do not see a future in the state. “Two months is a long time for daily wagers. With no option to earn a livelihood, they have decided to return to where they came from,” he said.
State rural development department secretary Aradhana Patnaik said migrants keen to join agriculture, animal husbandry and other subsidiary sectors for self-employment are being linked with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission for immediate relief.
“The department launched Mission Saksham app to collect information about the skills, interests and other details of migrant labourers. So far, a database of about 4.56 lakh migrant labourers has been prepared and 37.2% of them are interested in farming and are keen to start agriculture-based livelihood. About 14% have expressed their desire to engage themselves in animal husbandry,” she said.
In the early days of the outbreak, the maximum number of Covid cases detected in the state were linked to migrant workers. On May 31, of the 2,290 patients, 2,001 were migrants. As the influx slowed, so did the numbers. By Thursday, when the number of cases in the state have doubled to 4,800, the share of migrant population remains pegged at 2,245.
Critics said that the entire exercise of bringing back migrants workers and giving them hope for livelihood at home has failed as they are being “forced to return to cities after jeopardizing containment measures in the state”.
“What is the point forcing the labourers to travel in and travel out repeatedly when no state is prepared to provide them with the means for livelihood?” Herenj asked.