MUMBAI, India (AP) – Migrant workers are piling up at railway stations in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, to return to their hometowns now that virus control measures have dried up work in the affected region.
“What am I doing now?” asked Ramzan Ali, who had earned up to 500 rupees ($ 7) a day as a worker, but has been out of work for two weeks.
He arrived at Kurla railway station on Friday morning and joined a long line to buy a ticket to board a train to Balrampur, his village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Ali, 47, hopes to find some work in the village to feed his wife and four children.
Similar scenes were also beginning in New Delhi, where some migrant workers were worried that they would get caught if a closure was declared.
The Bombay-based government of Maharashtra state on Wednesday imposed blockade-like curbs for 15 days to check for the spread of the virus. It closed most industries, businesses and public places and limited the movement of people, but did not stop bus, train and air services.
There was an exodus, with panicked day laborers carrying backpacks on crowded trains leaving Bombay. Migration raises fears of the virus spreading to rural areas.
Maharashtra has been the center of the recent rise in new infections in the nation. On Friday, India recorded another high of 217,353 new cases in the last 24 hours, boosting its total since the pandemic began after 14.2 million. The Ministry of Health also reported 1,185 fatalities in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 174,308.
The eagerness among migrant workers was not as desperate as last year when Indian Railways suspended all passenger train services during a strict and sudden national closure. This forced tens of thousands of impoverished workers to walk or ride trucks and buses in high heat as they tried to return home.
In addition, northern states like Punjab, Haryana and New Delhi and the western state of Rajasthan have not yet seen a large-scale movement of migrant workers because it is the harvest season. Large farms have hired workers to harvest wheat and other crops and prepare to plant new crops.
Mohammad Aslam, 24, is a tailor in Mumbai, but said he has been sitting idle for 18 days. He was in line to board a train with relatives and other people heading to the city of Muzzaffaarpur in the eastern state of Bihar.
“My extended family has a farm there and I can make money working there,” he said.
Shiva Sanjeev, 27, was desperate to get on a train because his 70-year-old grandfather is seriously ill in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh state.
“I’m getting frantic calls from my parents and other family members to get back to my hometown,” he said.
After announcing orders to stay home over the weekend in New Delhi on Thursday, several migrant workers there said they were worried there would be no closure. A large crowd of migrant workers waited on Friday in front of the capital’s Anand Vihar railway station, as authorities only allowed people with confirmed tickets to enter the platform.
Sonu Sharma, a carpenter working on construction sites, was hoping to board a train for his hometown, Begu Sarai, in eastern Bihar state.
“My work will stop on Saturday. I don’t want to be left unemployed here if there is a blockage, ”Sharma said.
It was in the Indian capital in March 2020, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a strict national closure. For three months, he did not leave home living on his savings.
“But this time I have no savings left,” he said. “In case there’s a blockage, I’ll be left with nothing.”
Azad, a construction worker who only uses one name, said after declaring the closure last year that he could not find transport to return to his village in his Bihar state.
“It took me five days to walk home. It was horrible, ”Azad said, adding that it was safer to go home before things got worse.
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Associated Press writer Neha Mehrotra contributed to this New Delhi report.