The nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24 at short notice. This created agony among hundreds of workers all over India. This turmoil has a long aching story of them. They have gone through the anguish and most challenging situation. I might not express here, but some points and facts are defined to understand their painful conditions. Four crore migrant labourers are engaged in various works in different parts of the country, and so far 75 lakh migrants are working during the lockdown.
They dealt with multiple issues; somewhere they needed care and help, but they did not get on time. Some critical problems which they faced are- loss of income; Food shortage; Uncertainty; Lack of water during the hot summer days; No means of transformation; The long way by feet and not a cup of tea; Lack of money; No safe place while walking to stay with their families and more.
Regrettably, last week in one of the Lok Sabha sessions, the central government said that there is no data maintained for the death of migrant workers across the country. This fact has hit me hard as I believe that every life is equally valuable. This statement is shocking. Various organizations collected data on migrant workers’ deaths, and ironically the government has no data regarding that.
Various cases have not been registered yet—hundreds of workers lost their lives while coming back to their homes after losing their job.
Jan Sahas Report
A report brought by the Jan Sahas (NGO) after the rapid assessment of over 3000 construction workers in the early days of the lockdown found out that 92% of the labourers had “already lost work ranging from the first week to the third week of the month”. As per the data which is available on the website of Public Interest Technologies Thejesh G.N, 900 people died due to various reasons. Some stories told by the victims’ families are:
- Kanhaiya Lal blames the government for imposing another phase of lockdown without informing migrants about the time frame.
- A student still grieves his father who died on-board a shramik special train. His father, who used to work as a mason, was returning to his native district from Kalyan near Mumbai.
- Here is one more heartbreaking story of Sipahilal, who lives in Lakhimpur Kheri. This battle is little different here as his brother came back from Gurugram where he earned a good pay at a power tower firm. His family told that he was assaulted, threatened, wounded by policemen for allegedly escaping from local quarantine centre. No action has been taken yet in this regard.
There were at least 1,461 accidents throughout the nationwide lockdown – from March 25 to May 31 – in which at least 750 people were killed, including 198 migrant workers. There were 1,390 who got injured, according to the data.
What Went Wrong?
Fatigue of bus and truck drivers. Over speeding transport. The low manufacturing of roads as the top reason for deaths. They could not get the right treatment and help during this crisis. Some of them could not get food and water during the crisis. Lack of treatment due to fear of infection.
Suitable Measures
- The government indeed provided food, water and trains, but somewhere they could not save the valuable lives of migrant workers. There are some suggestions which could have been implemented :
- The government should have announced lockdown before one week because meantime all the labourers could have prepared themselves mentally for a hard time.
- All the preventive measures should have been taken for their lives like time to the time helpline, food, counselling on the phone to connect them.
- Experienced drivers must have been placed as a safety concern.
- Awareness, rather than chaos, must have been spread; there were various cases where a deceased was not COVID positive even though they were not cremated with rituals due to fear and superstition.
Whatever happened can not be changed, neither can we bring them back who lost their valuable lives. But one thing we can do is to help financially to their families and looking for some job opportunities still since we all are facing a financial crisis as well.