With non-essential businesses shut till April 30 as part of the new COVID-19 restrictions in Maharashtra, migrant workers from Mumbai are looking to return to their home states are queueing up at train reservation counters at Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT).
“There have been many queries today from people who want to catch a train to UP and Bihar. I told them to get reserved tickets,” a railway employee at LTT said.
Waiting in a queue at LTT on Tuesday afternoon, Niyaz Ahmed, a 30-year-old from Lucknow, said: “I sold lemon juice on Mohamed Ali road. I have been in Mumbai for 15 years. I have a wife and one child back home. I am homeless and lived on the street. Now I have no source of income. Back home, I will have no job but at least I will get food twice a day. Here I will die hungry. They are saying there is no ticket. I will go without a ticket and pay the fine if the ticket checker catches me.”
Like Ahmed, Suraj Yadav, 22, residents of Satna in Madhya Pradesh, rushed to the reservation counter to book tickets. With no tickets available, he decided to sleep on the platform.
“We worked in a small hotel in Nerul. The owner said he will not pay us but will provide for our food. What can we do, sir? We cannot wait, we have to leave. I do not know if we will get work back in the village but will have to do something like farming,” said Yadav.
Surjitt Sahani
