About 700 migrant workers, who had been left stranded at
Rangpo on the border with Bengal since Thursday, were forced to return
to their respective places of work in different parts of Sikkim on
Friday after they were denied permission to leave the state following a
request from neighbouring Bengal.
The workers, who are mostly from
Bengal and some from Bihar and Jharkhand, had reached Rangpo, which is
about 40km from here. They arrived from different corners of the state
in the past couple of days after they were told that vehicles were being
made available for inter-state travel from the border town.
However,
they were left stranded after the Sikkim authorities refused them
permission to leave the state at the request of district authorities of
Kalimpong and Darjeeling in Bengal.
“I spoke to my counterparts in
Kalimpong and Darjeeling and they said it was not possible to allow so
many people to travel to Siliguri for now. I understand there are no
adequate arrangements for their stay there,” said Raj Yadav, the
district collector of East Sikkim.
Yadav requested the migrant workers to stay put wherever they
were and promised to facilitate their travel home as and when their
respective governments gave the green light. “We have sent back almost
all of the stranded workers to their respective places. We had provided
accommodation and food to them at Rangpo,” he said.
Yadav said
only those persons with valid train tickets and those with personal
transportation arrangements on the other side of the border were being
allowed to leave the state.
“From my district alone, 2200 workers
have left over the past four-five days. Almost 80 per cent of them were
from Bengal,” he added.
Many stranded workers, however, said they
wanted to return their homes at the earliest because they had neither
work nor food in Sikkim.
“I would request Mamata didi
(chief minister of Bengal) to do something. People from other states
have gone, but we are stuck here,” said a construction worker from
Malda.
Some said they had paid triple the fare to reach Rangpo from Gangtok in the hope of crossing the border.
“I
paid Rs 300 to reach Rangpo, which is more than triple the normal
fare,” said one of them. Others said they had walked miles to reach the
border town.
With the workers getting stranded in the neighbouring
state, sources in the district administration of Kalimpong that shares
border with Sikkim, said they had sought details of such workers.
“We
need to know who is from which district of Bengal or from which other
state so that transport and other arrangements can be made accordingly.
We have sought these details from authorities in Sikkim so that the
movement of these workers to their homes can be managed in a smooth
manner,” said an official.
The official pointed out that such
details are necessary so that the administration of the district
concerned in Bengal or the governments of other states can be intimated
ahead of the arrival of these workers.
“In fact, we are likely to
get details of a section of these workers who have been working in East
district of Sikkim. We would immediately make arrangements so that they
can head for their homes,” the official added.
https://www.telegraphindia.com Additional reporting by Vivek Chhetri in Darjeeling
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