Migrants prefer trucks, tempos to return home

Even as special Shramik trains and buses are being run by the government to ferry stranded migrant labourers from Maharashtra and other states, most of them still prefer to travel in vehicles like trucks and tempos to return home, flouting the social distancing norms.

The migrants find trucks and tempos convenient, mostly because they drop them close to their home in their respective states, unlike the buses which carry them only till the state border, while the trains ferry them to their home state, from where they have to arrange for vehicles to reach their places.

However, their journey in trucks and tempos is not safe as these vehicles are almost always tightly packed, due to which the risk of contracting COVID-19 infection is higher.

Small tempos carry around 20 persons, while the medium-sized ones can accommodate 25 to 40 people. Small trucks can carry 40 to 60 people, while the larger ones are found carrying up to 100 or even more, with several of them sitting atop.

Sources said that the truckers charge anywhere in the range of Rs 1,500 to Rs 4,500 per person for the journey to Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand depending upon the distance to their native places from Mumbai and adjoining places.

Talking to PTI, several migrant labourers said that vehicle operators charge Rs 1,500-2,000 for MP, Rs 3,000-3,500 for UP and Rs 3,000-4,500 for Bihar.

The migrants said that they prefer trucks and tempos to go back to their native places as the trucks drop them close to their villages, while buses drop them only till the state border, from where they have to find another mode of transport to reach home.

Several of them said that they were forced to undertake journey in vehicles like trucks, as their efforts in seeking permission for Shramik special trains did not get any response.

Umesh Kumar Maurya, a worker from a sweet shop in Maharashtra's Kalyan, who was heading to Lucknow, said, "For the train journey, I had first applied online and later on visited local police station in Kalyan three times. However, I did not get any response and hence decided to take road journey."

After the Centre extended the lockdown, especially for the second time, a large number of migrants started returning home by whatever mode of transport available to them.

A large number of them even started their journey back home on foot.