A group of anxious migrant labourers stood outside the New Delhi railway station hoping to hitch a ride back to their home town in one of the passenger trains, as select services resumed on Tuesday. Their anxiety turned into grief when they saw shut ticket counters, and later, informed that the tickets were sold online and the police were letting only those with valid e-tickets to enter the station. And even if they found some means to purchase tickets online, they couldn’t afford the price.
Some had walked 85 km, some had spent the entire night on the station premises, some had come with parents and children, some had come from various States, but their hopes were shattered. Like Brajesh Kumar and Ram Paswan, aged 22 and 23 respectively, walked 14 hours, from Shahid Bhagat Singh Chowk in Rewari, Haryana, to reach the station.
“We had no money to hire a taxi. Now, we are told that the ticket prices are over ₹1,500 per head. How will we get that money,” asked the duo, who were working at a local factory, which shut after the nationwide lockdown “Our only option is to head back to our home town in Bihar’s Gidha is on foot,” said Kumar.
In sheer desperation, he is asking people for the road that leads to his district. With the option of returning to Rewari ruled down, they decided to spend the night at a shelter in the station premises.
A group of Gorakhpur-bound painters — Prince Raj Prajapati (19), Shahbuddin (20), Dil Sher (20) and Sahil Raja (20) — thought they could manage some discount on the tickets, only to be turned away by the police. “We hoped the police will help us get into a train. But that is not happening. We don’t know what we are going to do now,” said Prajapati.
No app, no entry
Mohammed Saddam Hussain (30), his wife and their one-and-a-half-year-old baby were calmly waiting for their turn to enter the railway station when someone asked if he had installed Aarogya Setu app on his mobile. The Indian Railways had made it mandatory for passengers travelling in 15 special trains.
“We don’t now what it is. We have the online ticket. Is that not enough?” Hussain queried, before he frantically sought help to install the application. Fellow construction worker Mohammad Tanvir, who was to board the train for Katihar in Bihar, too encountered a similar problem. Till 7.30 p.m. on Monday, more than 18,000 tickets were booked online.
‘Don’t bring back Corona’
Twenty-three-year-old Sapna Thakur, who landed in Delhi from Jhansi on March 19 for a job interview in an IT firm, said she has been stuck in the Capital with her roommate since March 23. The interview did not go well either, as the firm told her that they had frozen the recruitment. Thanks to her mother, she was informed about online ticketing and the Aarogya Setu app.
“She keeps a tab on the news for me since I have been living in a ‘red zone’ for the last two months,” Ms. Thakur said. “Now that I am returning home, my mother quipped ‘Corona lekar mat aana’ [don’t bring back corona],” she joked. But those standing outside the station were in no mood to joke.
