A year on, migrants struggle to get life back in order

A woman carrying luggage weeps over the loss of her husband, as she tries to cross Delhi-UP border with her kids on May 17. Pic/PTI

About this time last year, when people all over India locked down in their homes, they undertook epic journeys back to their villages "some clambering on trains and buses and others walking and cycling many hundred miles as they fled the big cities that could no longer promise two meals a day.

One year later, the vaccine is here, and life is slowly resuming to its pre-corona form, but those who were part of the catastrophic human tragedy that was the migration crisis are still recovering from the scars.

Avinash Yadav, who along with his family, travelled over 1,000 km in 10 days to reach his home at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh, said the journey was only the beginning of their struggle.

With no source of income in the village, the family survived five months by borrowing money from local lenders at an exorbitant interest rate of 5 per cent per month. "At this point, I have a loan of R1 lakh," he said. He is in Chandigarh now, working at a school. While there is a salary, he said it is barely enough to feed his family, let alone repay the loan. He is among the thousands of migrants struggling to make their ends meet. As many as 1,04,66,152 people returned to their homes after the lockdown last March.

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