New Delhi : Due to Coronavirus outbreak and lockdown across the Country had left daily wagers and homeless with no other option other than to stay indoors. Left with no money to buy bread for their families, the workers are ready to even work for small amount of money just to feed their families. Without work, money and no scope of going back home, the migrant labourers are spending every penny wisely. Even the homeless are looking for shelters homes, which are already crowded, just for one time meal.
The daily wagers whose families are at their native places said that, they even now find it difficult to reach their homes due to shortage of money and unavailability of the transportation due to lockdown.
Meanwhile, the migrant workers are also facing double trouble as neither they have information on how to prevent themselves from this coronavirus pandemic nor do they have financial assistance to survive this lockdown from the government.
Most of the workers said that they still leave their homes on morning hours in order to earn. “We earn on daily basis and on monthly basis we send money to our respective families back at home but now it is even hard to feed my children and wife,” said Ramesh, who works as a laborer.
“I work in a plastic godown located at Samaypur area. I have not been going to work since the last 6 days. I belong to Muzaffarpur , Bihar but now cannot even travel to reach home due to this lockdown. We do have some ration stocked which is being used at this time but that can run out anytime,” said Sanjay Choudhary, a worker.
He further revealed neither the owner has given any information regarding wages etc nor we have been able to inquire about the same.
“Here we ourselves do not have money to survive. All we are worried about is our families to whom we used to send money and are not been able to now. Most of our(workers) families are dependent on us. Spending every penny or saving we have is becoming difficult for us,” said Choudhary.
Another worker Dara Singh who works in at polythene bags factory stated that” We don’t have money, it’s really difficult for is to survive. We are not even getting our salaries in advance. While the food essentials and cylinder is about to run out of stock. People have started selling things in black which we can’t afford,”
” If we won’t earn, we will die otherwise. Our families back home will die of hunger. We request the government to come forward to help us out,” said Singh who belongs to Giridi area of Jharkhand State.
However, in order to pass time away from home during this lockdown, these people are spending time playing cricket in their streets when possible or on the roof top.
Bhura a migrant worker from Jharkhand is forced to live as a vagabond said, due to overcrowding of shelter homes, he prefers to go to shelter homes only for meals. “As there is no earning and due to cash crunch, I left my rented dingy room in Jahangirpuri and tried to board a train for my native place but unfortunately when I reached the railway station the train services were halted followich which I had to find a place on foot path to spend my nights.”
