In Merwara Kala, a village in Ballia district on the border of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, those who have returned find that their journey has not ended.
Since Thursday, 17 migrants have returned to their village from Hyderabad, Palwal (Haryana), Kolhapur and Mumbai. They are now ‘quarantined’ in the village primary school where there is neither bedding nor food.
On behalf of village pradhan Savita Devi, her husband, Parsidhan Prasad, says, “How are we supposed to make any arrangements from our own pockets? These people should not have come here. I hear there is a centre at Narayanpur village. They should have stayed there.”
Savitri Devi, the villagers say, is mostly absent from a say in village affairs. It is her husband—the likes of whom are referred to as pradhan pati (husband of the village head) across the state—who fulfils her duties. Narayanpur, according to him, is a village 8 kilometres away.
Sunil Kumar Prasad (20) returned to his village from Hyderabad where he worked in a pressure cooker-making unit. He says that his journey was made on two-wheelers, trucks and on foot. “I spent almost Rs 4,000 getting back home. But here I am shunned,” he says.
Prasad left Hyderabad on May 11 (Monday). On Wednesday, he entered the state from Bihar in Ghazipur, another border district, where he underwent a thermal scan at the town of Zamania. There, he stayed the night with a relative before hitching a ride on a motorbike with two other young men to his village on Thursday evening.
“For one night, I stayed at home and kept far away from other family members. Then, the neighbours started to get angry with my family,” he says.
Santu Paswan (40) returned home from Kolhapur, with five other co-workers from the village on Saturday evening. Their journey was made possible on a Shramik train, which brought them to Allahabad from where the district authorities sent them to Ballia. He says that at Ballia they were checked at the district hospital.
“After that, the police put us in a truck going to Bihar and asked the driver to drop us as close to the village as possible,” he says.
Paswan, who works at a chemical-making unit, says that he had waited for over a month to return home and is thankful that he could make that journey with government help without spending money. And without facing any of the hardships that he has seen and heard about.
“But now what? We have been imprisoned on the school grounds. The village people do not allow us even to go out for a walk. However our food is still coming from home. Is there no fear of infection from our touching those utensils?” he asks.
On April 24, the state government had announced that it would get its natives stranded elsewhere home in a phased manner, and that they would be provided ration kits, quarantine facilities near home and Rs 1,000.
The pradhan pati claims that he has heard all about it. “We have not been paid anything to make any arrangements. We are a simple couple and the villagers are abusing and threatening us. However, till the district administration does not tell us how or what, we cannot do anything”.
The district administration of Ballia had announced that while there was no specific fund marked for the quarantine facilities of those who were returning to their villages, all block development officers (BDO) were to take care of the same. For every person returning home, the BDO could spend Rs 80 per day and claim the same, upon production of bills, from the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM).
