Jaipur: In the wake of the nationwide lockdown due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus, thousands of workers across India, are left with no option but to walk from their urban dwellings to their villages and home towns because bus and train services have screeched to a halt.
This countrywide lockdown has created lots of problems for the people who have come to Jaipur in search of work as labourers. They were working as daily wagers and now they are eager to go back to their villages because all modes of public transport were shut and the 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
ETV Bharat tried to find out the ground-level situation on the roads of the capital city of Rajasthan on the third day of the lockdown.
On the third day of the 21- day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was found that a wide gap between the government's claims and the ground-level reality is existing.
The poor people here do not know how and when will they be able to return to their villages, what would happen to their children and who would listen to their grievances?
Narrating his woes, Ishwar from Jhalawar of Rajasthan said that he had lost one toe and yet was somehow able to eke out a living working as daily wage earner living by the roadside in Jaipur. He was not getting any work now and so it was difficult to live by the roadside. But now he wants to go back to his village to be with the family.
"Most of us work here (in Jaipur). Since everything is shut, our owner has asked us to come back only after things get normal, as they don't have money to pay us. No work for 21 days would mean no income and we, surviving, in a city like Jaipur without any income would be a tough task for us," he said.
Similar was the condition of an old woman from Sangod of Kota district. She was standing on the other side of the road with her sick husband. She crossed the road seeing the ETV Bharat team with the hope of getting some help if. The woman said that she has four daughters in her village. She is more worried about her daughters than how to get food for self and her husband.
Notably, the government has imposed Section 144 of CrPC which prohibits the gathering of more than four persons at a place. But, the hapless labourers are seen standing together in dozens by the roadside in the hope of a truck that would take them some distance close to their village.
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