Gorakhpur (UP)
A large number of migrant workers who returned home during the COVID-19 lockdown have begun heading back to their previous places of work in hope of a new beginning, realising that they have no jobs matching their skills in their native places.
Two trains leave Gorakhpur daily for Mumbai and one every alternate day, and they are largely carrying migrant workers to their destination. Kushinagar Express and Gorakhpur Mumbai LTT Sant Kabir Dham COVID-19 super fast special trains go daily to Mumbai, while Awadh COVID-19 special, running between Gorakhpur and Bandra terminals, leave Gorakhpur on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Although the trains heading to Mumbai are not still fully filled, they head back largely carrying migrant workers who returned home in panic and haste.
Industries in Maharashtra’s green zones have started functioning and are calling back workers who returned home during the lockdown. Once the workers reach Mumbai, they will be stamped at railway stations and after spending 14 days in home-quarantine, they will be able to resume their work.
Mahrajganj native Satyendra Kushwaha, while waiting at Gorakhpur railway station for his train to Mumbai, told PTI, “I was working in a lamination company between Pune and Mumbai. My family lives in my village. During lockdown I became jobless and my savings started decreasing. A month back I reached my village, partly walking and partly taking a lift in a truck. But I’m returning now as my factory is calling me back and there is no work for me here akin to my skills,” he said.
Ram Manohar (40) of Pipraich area in Gorakhpur, was returning to Nashik with wife and two children.
“I was working at a bag manufacturing firm. I became jobless after the lockdown. In my village here, my two brothers and their families live in our small ancestral house and do farming on a small piece of land, and also work as farm labourers. “I was earning well in Nashik. I realised very soon I can’t survive here. Now my company is calling me back as manufacturing has resumed there,” said Manohar.
Punjab farmers, bizmen offer advance payments, return tickets
Chandigarh: In a case of reverse migration, farmers in Punjab are trying to woo back migrants by offering them advance payments, more labour charges and confirmed train tickets for their return.
Similarly, the industrial sector, which also seeks to scale up production capacities following relaxation in the lockdown, is considering to bear the cost of return of migrant workers.
Both agriculture and industrial sectors bore the brunt of labour shortage after many migrant workers went back to native places in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.
On one hand, labour charges for paddy transplantation have almost doubled to Rs6,000 to Rs7,000 an acre, on the other hand, the industry could not utilise its full production capacities because of labour crisis non-availability of raw material among other factors. “There is an acute shortage of labour in Amritsar,” Sarbjit Singh Laddy, a farmer, rued.
“Now with the resumption of trains, we have got sleeper class train tickets reserved for our labourers for their return. They will start coming back from June 14,” Laddy added.
Jagseer Singh, a farmer of village Chhiniwal in Barnala district, said he along with other farmers sent three buses to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to bring their workers back.
Upon their arrival, the workers will stay at the fields in the wake of coronavirus, he said.
The growers also stated that they were offering more labour charges to the workers, adding some were even depositing advance payment of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 in the bank accounts of migrants.
The migrants, however, are urging their employers to guarantee their safe return after the sowing season.
Paddy transplantation is a labour-intensive exercise in which nurseries are transplanted in puddled fields, for which at least two to three workers per acre are required.
United Cycle and Parts Manufacturers Association president D S Chawla on Friday said several industrialists have contacted their workers and offered to bear their cost of return.
"We are telling our workers to come back and that we will foot their cost of return," he said.
Chawla said they had also urged the state government to bring back the migrant workers from their native places the way they were sent from Punjab.
He also said that there was a need to train local youths, including women, to work in factories in order to prevent any situation of labour shortage in future. "We want to provide training to village youths who fall prey to drugs, so that they can work in our factories," the official added.
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