Migrants left stranded at Manmad for 24 hours, Railway official comes to their rescue

A group migrant labourers from Maharashtra, who were stuck in Varanasi for over two months, have returned to the state. But upon arrival, the group faced fresh problems, leaving them stranded in Manmad for around 24 hours. The group, which consists of 21 people comprising kids and women, were stuck as nobody was willing to take the responsibility to organise transport for them to reach their homes in Marathwada.

Finally, after a 24-hour-long wait, a railway official from CR's Bhusawal Division arranged a vehicle on personal capacity late on Thursday to take the group to Aurangabad's borders. The migrants reached Manmad at around 10 pm on Wednesday.

According to Abhiman Gaikwad (35), a group of 10 migrants labours from Naded and 11 from Jalana went to Varanasi for laying a telephone line underground. They reached Varanasi on March 21 but due to the lockdown, work of laying the underground telephone line was suspended. With this, the workers became jobless.

"We didn't have so much money to arrange vehicles for return. So we decided to spend some time near the station, but an officer of Railways spotted us and after enquiring, he not only arrange accommodation for us in the passengers hall of Varanasi but also food," said Gaikwad.

"Till June 2, they not only arranged breakfast, lunch and dinner for us but also arranged clothes, soap and shaving kits," Maruti Adgile (51), another labourer, told Mirror on Thursday. "The hall where we were kept was very good and hygienic and equipped with a cooler and TV set," Adgile added.

When Shramik special trains started from Varanasi on June 2, the group was very happy. "On Wednesday around 10 pm, when we deboarded at Manmad we thought that now all out problems were over but we were proved wrong. Our problems started from there," Abhiman Gaikwad said.

"When we reached Manmad, we were told that our travel authority ended here. But one of the railway officers came forward and arranged food and water for us," Gaikwad added.

When Mirror contacted Milind Thigale, a commercial Inspector of CRs Bhusawal Division, he said that the railway informed the state agency but no one was ready to take responsibility to arrange transport facility for them to take them to their respective houses.

After around 24 hours, Milind could finally arrange a private vehicle from his own pocket.

"Finally, the district authority of Aurangabad was ready to pick up these labours from the border. Hence, I arranged a private vehicle from Manmad to Aurangabad district border late Thursday evening," Milind said. According to Milind, not only transport but he also bore the cost of food for this group at Manmad.

"I spent almost Rs 3,000 on lunch, dinner and breakfast and paid almost the same amount for transporting the labourers up to Aurangabad border," he said.

Thanking Gaikwad, the leader of the migrant group told Mirror, "We don't expect this type of treatment in our home state by the government. In Varanasi, they kept us like a guest but here, we were treated like unknown persons by our own administration."