Migrants with confirmation find no respite
New Delhi: As thousands of migrant workers continue to be ferried back home from the Capital, there are thousands of others who return from various screening centres across Delhi everyday — disappointed that they were not able to get on a train home despite having received a message confirming their travel dates.
Just the latest among the host of issues troubling the registration process for Shramik Special Trains, many migrant workers are found receiving a message confirming the date of their travel and the time at which they must report to the particular screening centre from where they will be boarded onto buses to the railway stations.
However, hundreds of them, after waiting over 15 days for the confirmation message and after waiting for hours in kilometre-long lines under the scorching heat are unable to get screened. Officials at the screening centre say that the trains for the day have been filled and that no more workers can be sent back today.
There were over 300 migrant workers left in the lurch outside the Hemu Kalani Secondary School Screening Centre in Lajpat Nagar on Saturday evening, who were not allowed to get screened and board buses despite having received confirmation of their travel dates from the district and state authorities.
"Why send all of us confirmation messages if only a limited number of people can be accommodated per day," said Phuleshwar Kumar, who had been confirmed for travel to Samastipur in Bihar on Saturday. Scores of other migrant workers like him soon moved into a municipal park near the screening centre to spend the night so they can line up the next day again.
When asked why more people were receiving confirmation than the capacity of screening centres, a Northern Railway official said, "This is a matter for the district and state administrations as they are the ones responsible for getting workers registered and screened." District officials at the screening centre, however, said that the process is not being followed as set out.
"Many workers line up from late at night outside the centre. So, we give out screening passes on a first-come-first-serve basis," one official inside the centre said. Another official at the centre said that hundreds of migrant workers with confirmation are being left out of the process for the last two-three days.
However, officials in the South-East DM's office said that migrant workers who are left out are often taken to shelter homes nearby and some are even housed at the screening centre till the next day. "But some of them do not wish to go to shelter homes and decide to stay on the roads waiting to line up the next day," one district official said.
Significantly, Delhi has now registered over 4.10 lakh migrant workers who wish to go home, but numbers from the Northern Railway show that only around 2 lakh of these workers have so far been sent home.
