Garments factory worker returns home from Pushkar in Rajasthan

Returning home after a year,

garments factory worker Alam never thought it would be in this manner as he travelled by bus to his native village after alighting from a special train that brought hundreds of people like him back from Rajasthan amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

A resident of Meherani village under Bagda police station area in North 24 Parganas district, the 40-year old migrant worker from Bengal said that he has been working at the factory in Pushkar for the last 17 years.

"Without work since the lockdown came into effect from March 25, we were running out of resources and were desperate to return home," Alam said.

 

He claimed that more than 400 people like him from Bagda and nearby places worked at garments stitching factories in Pushkar, said.

A total of 1,186 workers and pilgrims were brought back from Ajmer to West Bengal by a special train that reached Dankuni railway station on Tuesday morning.

Alam said that the officers of Rajasthan government, within which Pushkar lies, got in touch with them and made arrangements for their return.

The Rajasthan government coordinated with the West Bengal government for bringing them back home, he said.

Tanmoy Ghosh of NGO Bangla Sanskriti Mancha said that there are around 700 more migrant workers from Bengal who are waiting in Pushkar to be brought back home.

He claimed that his organisation worked to bring to the notice of both the Rajasthan and West Bengal government the plight of migrant workers from the state in Rajasthan, along with lakhs of others in various other states.

"We had no problem during the train journey and were provided with food and water on the way," Alam told PTI over the phone as his bus sped towards Bagda.

He said that while Ajmer Sharif Darga authorities gave them food before they boarded the train there, dinner was served to them at Kanpur on Monday night and breakfast was given at Gaya in the morning of Tuesday by the Railway authorities.

Alam said that they were subjected to medical test before being allowed to board the train at Ajmer and they went through another check-up after reaching the destination station.

"I am keen to meet my parents, wife and daughter, who is just six years of age," he said, while lamenting that he could not buy any gift for them owing to the extraordinary situation.

It will, however, depend on the local authorities to decide whether the returnees will be kept in institutional quarantine or in home isolation for a specified period of time, since they have come from another state.

The West Bengal government took over their charge from Dankuni railway station and they were provided food and water before boarding buses for their native towns and villages in various districts of the state, an official source said.

The state government arranged several buses and other vehicles to reach these people to their localities, the source said.