Stranded away from their homes and having exhausted their meagre savings, migrant labourers in Punjab are eager to return to the familiar environs of their native places now that the Centre has allowed their movement.
Lakhs of migrant labourers have been stranded across the country for over a month as the Centre imposed a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus on March 25, ordering people indoors and restricting inter-state travel, among other curbs.
Shortly after the announcement of the lockdown, as thousands of anxious labourers set out on foot from cities to their homes, governments across states set up shelters for them and have been providing them food and other necessities.
According to officials, there are nearly 10 lakh migrant labourers in Punjab. Approximately 70 per cent of these are from Bihar.
Building contractor Bhagvat Yadav, a native of Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow, on Thursday said around 45 people, including labourers and masons, are working with him and all of them want to go back home.
They are out of work as most construction work has been halted. Even though the government has allowed construction activities, people do not have the capacity to pay, he said in Amritsar.
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Yadav claimed around 20,000 people are stuck in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts due to the lockdown.
"In the absence of employment opportunities, nobody will want to stay here. Labourers are waiting for trains to start plying. The moment railway operations resume, a sizeable number of migrant labourers will leave," he said.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar Himanshu Aggarwal said the district administration will come up with a plan to allow migrant labourers to return home.
"The home ministry has asked state governments to appoint nodal officers to facilitate movement of people between states in a circular. District administration will formulate a strategy to facilitate the movement of all migrant labourers after receiving advisory from the state government," he said.
D P Maur, vice president of Punjab unit of the All India Trade Union Congress, alleged that migrant labourers in Ludhiana are facing a tough time due to non-availability of ration and other essential items.
"They had limited savings which they have used up. Now they are entirely at the mercy of the government," he said.
Upkar Singh Ahuja, president of Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings, said the industry has done all it could for the labourers.
"Now it was the duty of the state government to provide them financial assistance at least for three months from ESI (Employees' State Insurance) or MNERGA funds," he said.
However, a senior official of the Ludhiana district administration, who did not wish to be named, said it is not true that labourers are not getting ration.
He said ration is being distributed to all those in need.
A senior official of the labour department said the Uttar Pradesh government has already approached the Punjab government to facilitate the return of its migrant labourers.
On April 28, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said his government would make all efforts to care for the migrant labourers to ensure they stay put where they are.
"We need to look after them so that they do not leave Punjab, where they are needed to help out in the (agricultural produce) procurement operations as well as in industries that we are gradually opening up," he had said.
In neighbouring Haryana, over 12,000 workers from Uttar Pradesh have already gone back to their homes over the past few days, according to officials.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday that during the labourers' three-week stay at relief camps, "we did not let them face any kind of problem. Many of them, when they were leaving for their homes, turned emotional and said they had been taken care like a family".
He said most of the few thousand migrant labourers who are still in the state are currently engaged in work in agricultural fields as it is the team for wheat harvesting.
The Centre on Wednesday allowed migrant workers, tourists, students and other people stranded in different parts of the country to move to their respective destinations with certain conditions.
In an order, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said buses shall be used for transport of such groups of stranded people and these vehicles will be sanitised and will have to follow safe social distancing norms in seating.
In case a group of stranded persons wishes to move between one state and union territory and another state and union territory, the sending and receiving states may consult each other and mutually agree to the movement by road, it said.