Migrants kept waiting and waiting...

new delhi: Even after 20 days of Shramik Special Train beginning, the registration process is riddled with a host of problems that authorities coordinating these efforts are either unaware of or are simply passing the buck on as migrant workers stuck in Delhi continue to stare at longer waiting times and more uncertain days ahead.

On Monday, a batch of migrant workers had registered to board a Shramik train to Gorakhpur. They received a message asking them to be present at the Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium for pick up at 9 am but many of them could not reach Central Delhi on time from the outskirts of the Capital, thus missing their trains.

There have also been several instances of migrant workers registering online and not getting a confirmation for their travel dates for more than two weeks. In these cases, workers first receive a message with their registration numbers and are told that their confirmation would be sent in two-three days. This confirmation is what many of these workers are waiting for.

An official of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), which is coordinating registration for migrant workers in Delhi, said that they were not even aware of such a problem. "We are looking into it to find out what the process is and how we can help them out," he said.

Meanwhile, for migrant workers who have missed their trains for lack of transportation, the DUSIB official said there is no process in place yet to help them out. When asked whether the migrants would automatically be put on the next available train, he said: "Transportation is an issue that the state administration's nodal officer for migrant workers is dealing with."

A detailed questionnaire to Delhi Social Welfare Principal Secretary PK Gupta (Delhi's nodal officer for stranded workers), and several phone calls to him went unanswered.

When asked about these issues, a Northern Railway official said it is for the district administrations to deal with, whereas district officials said the matter lies with the Railway Board. At least one of Delhi's DMs told the Millennium Post that the central administration is the ones supposed to be addressing these issues.

Significantly, a large portion of migrant workers stuck in Delhi as of Tuesday are people who have crossed over to Delhi from Haryana or UP by bypassing the border barricades and have gotten stuck here. They have been living on the roads trying to continue their onward journey to Punjab or Bihar. As far as the registration process for trains is concerned, one must provide a Delhi address so that they can be screened and registered for travel.

However, these workers have complained of not knowing how to put a local address down. "See, they can go to a shelter and put that address for registering and can even put the address of the road they are stuck on. So far, these registrations have worked and whatever address is put down, we will arrange for registration from there accordingly," a DUSIB official in charge of registration said.