Getting Home, Somehow

Getting Home, Somehow

On Friday evening, a truck packed with 70 migrant workers reached Patna. The workers had walked 70 kms & then hired a truck @ Rs 3500 per head — Delhi to Bihar and onwards to Jharkhand. This was their life savings, atleast definitely all what they had on them. The truck will only take them upto Munger, then the remaining 47 will have to find another means to go to Godda.    

OIN’s Pathik Project is giving food and hygiene kits to migrants walking back home. But when the Bihar team received a call, all that the migrants wanted was some food. Chandan, Neha, and Devanand from our Patna office made sure that 70 food packets and water bottles were arranged from a nearby hotel and rushed to Anisabad in Patna.

The truck left with the migrants. In the meantime, we contacted Jharkhand government, which has initiated Jharkhand Collab Facility (of which OIN is a part of) to track migrant workers and support them to get back home safe. Last evening when they left, we knew that Collab was in touch with the workers and was arranging for their shelter and transportation after Munger.

During a brief chat before they left for their onward journey, they shared their worries about what awaits them at home — no work, no money, quarantine. This morning as we woke up to the news of 23 workers dying in a road accident in Auraiya in UP, the only thing that comes to mind then is that these 70 and millions like them reach home safe.

PS: Last information our Bihar office received was that the migrant workers had persuaded the truck driver to drop them to Bhagalpur — the district neighbouring Godda.

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