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 hard-hit region.
“What do I do now?” asks Ramzan Ali, who has earned up to 500 rupees ($ 7) a day as a laborer 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 town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Ali, 47, hopes to find work in the village to feed his wife and four children.
Similar scenes also began in New Delhi, where some migrant workers were worried they would get stuck if a lock was declared.
The government of the state of Maharashtra, home of Mumbai, imposed curbs for 15 days on Wednesday to control the spread of the virus. It closed most industries, businesses and public places and restricted the movement of people, but bus, train and air services did not stop.
An exodus ensued, with panicked day laborers transporting backpacks in overcrowded trains leaving Mumbai. The migration raises fears of the spread of viruses in rural areas.
Maharashtra is at the center of the country’s recent increase in new infections. On Friday, India recorded another high of 217,353 new cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the total since the pandemic to 14.2 million. The Ministry of Health also reported 1,185 deaths in the past 24 hours, increasing the deaths to 174,308.
The rush among migrant workers was not as desperate as last year when Indian Railways suspended all passenger train services during a severe and sudden rural shutdown. This has forced tens of thousands of impoverished workers to walk in rising heat or to ride trucks and buses as they try to return home.
Northern states such as Punjab, Haryana and New Delhi and the western state of Rajasthan have also not seen much migration of migrant workers yet as it is the harvest season. Large farms hired workers to harvest wheat and other crops and prepare them for sowing new crops.
Mohammad Aslam, 24, is a tailor in Mumbai but said he has been idle for 18 days. He was in line to board a train with family members and others on his way to the city of Muzzaffaarpur in the eastern part of Bihar.
“My extended family has a farm there and I can make money by working there,” he said.
Shiva Sanjeev, 27, was desperate to get on a train because his 70-year-old grandfather was seriously ill in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
“I get furious calls from my parents and other family members to return to my hometown,” he said.
After home orders were announced in New Delhi on Thursday, several migrant workers there said they were worried a lockout was not far away. A large crowd of migrant workers waited outside the capital Anand Vihar train station on Friday as authorities only allowed those with confirmed tickets to enter the platform.
Sonu Sharma, a carpenter working on construction sites, was waiting to board a train to his hometown, Begu Sarai, in the eastern part of Bihar.
“My work is going to stop on Saturday. “I do not want to sit here without work if there is going to be a closure,” Sharma said.
He was in the Indian capital in March 2020 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a strict nationwide exclusion. For three months he did not leave his house and lived on his savings.
“But this time I have no savings anymore,” he said. “If there is an exclusion, I will leave nothing behind.”
Azad, a construction worker using only one name, said after last year’s closure that he could not find transportation to return to his town in his Bihar state.
It took me five days to walk home. It was terrible, “said Azad, adding that it was safer to go home before things got worse.
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Associated Press Writer Neha Mehrotra contributed to this report from New Delhi.