As Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national lockdown on March 24 and asked Indians to stay home in order to contain the spread of ...
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national lockdown on March 24 and asked Indians to stay home in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it triggered an exodus of migrant workers from the cities. With all work halted and public transport shut, they set off on desperate journeys, aiming to walk back to homes hundreds of kilometres away. But Gaurav Kumar was not one of them.
He stayed back in Badmalik village in Haryana’s Sonepat area, far from his home in Bihar’s Vaishali district. The 26-year-old works as a painter and usually earns Rs 10,000 a month. He stays in a house with about 25 other workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
As work had dried up, their landlord agreed to exempt them from paying rent, which is Rs 2,500 per person. But that did not solve the problem of food. Kumar said he has barely 2 kg of wheat flour and rice left, the gas in his small cylinder is about to run out and he has about Rs 900 left as savings. “The problem is that most of us sent money back home during Holi,” he said. “We did not know what was going to happen.”
Before the lockdown,...
