Lockdown: The Great Migrant Story

Hit by the rising Corona curve, millions waging a desperate battle for survival across India

- Abhishek Anand, Isha Gupta, Manjeet Sehgal and Satyajeet Kumar

As India grinds to a halt with a three-week nationwide lockdown in place to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus, the unorganised working force on the margins of society might be the worst hit with no savings and therefore completely dependent on what they earn each day.

According to official data, there are 42 crore (420 million) people in the unorganised sector, including agricultural labourers, spread out across the sprawl that is India. Some are migrant workers, stuck in distant corners with no transport to take them back to their villages, while others are scrounging to make ends meet with no money coming in.

And all are getting increasingly frantic on how they and their families will manage in the days and weeks to come.

A STORY FROM NOIDA

A teary-eyed Rameshwar Sahu waits impatiently outside his shanty in Greater Noida West. He has to feed his one-year-old toddler and wife but has no job following the nationwide lockdown. He is left with barely Rs 2,000 and the ration is also drying up. Sahu, 30, and his wife Kunti used to earn Rs 8,00-1,000 a day at a construction site in Noida for nearly 12 hours a day, but their life came crashing down since the 21-day lockdown was imposed to stop the spread of Coronavirus pandemic.

Sahu says he was unable to go home as he didn’t have enough money and when he went to his contractor to ask for it, he gave him merely Rs 1,000 for ration.

“God knows how we will survive for the next 21 days. We used to earn Rs 20-25,000 every month after doing overtime. We don’t have a permanent job. If we work, we earn money, if don’t, there is no money. Right now, I have very little money left. I wanted to go home before the lockdown but without money it was not possible,” said Sahu, who live in a shanty near Ek Murti at Greater Noida West.