Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 22
In a desperate bid to return home, 23 stranded Nagas set out on a journey by road from Durgapur in West Bengal on May 21.
The returnees, comprising of students and working people, hired a private bus for Rs 1,18,000 to return to their home state.
Speaking to The Morung Express, one of the returnees said that they had to resort to travelling by road, as there was little hope or chance of special trains for them any time soon.
“We heard that the minimum number of returnees for a special train was 1000. We do not even number to 500 in Durgapur, which meant our situation would only have worsened if we kept waiting to return by train,” he said.
The group from Durgapur tried to stay back for as long as they could. But with dwindling resources and non-receipt of the CM Relief Fund, survival had become an everyday struggle. “We applied for the CM Relief Fund, but while some of our friends received the payment, many of us did not receive the payment. The last intimation was that the amount was ‘sent to bank for payment’, but we have not received the payment,” another returnee said.
Most of us had stopped receiving salary. We were last paid in February and since the lockdown, without a regular income it was becoming hard to pay rent, buy ration and other supplies, he shared.
To add to their troubles, the returnees also shared that, while in Durgapur, they had to face discrimination even while shopping for groceries. “We were running out of money and on top of it, they started charging us double the price for groceries when we went shopping,” one of them said.
Being away from the main city Kolkata also posed a problem for them to access whatever help was being provided by the Naga Students Union.
“We tried to manage with whatever we had at hand. But we could not go on, and constantly asking for money from our parents back home was not possible,” they shared.
A sense of relief finally came for them when the returnees learnt from the Nodal officers that they could apply for entry/exit pass for self arranged/expensed travel.
After this, they decided that they would all collect whatever amount they could arrange in order to travel back home. Each of them contributed Rs 5400 to pay for the bus which cost Rs 1,18,000 per trip. Some of them chipped in for those who could not pay the amount.
23 returnees and 3 bus drivers embarked on the journey to Nagaland on Thursday. The returnees informed that another group is set to return from Kolkata on May 23 by bus.
After clearing the exit screening in West Bengal, the home bound returnees were expecting to reach home by May 22. However, they were halted in the Assam-West Bengal border for 6 hours, which has delayed their arrival. They are now expected to reach Nagaland on May 23.
Their last stop was at Assam around 4:30pm at Assam where they had been stopped for routine checking.
On arrival, they will be received by the Transportation Committee of the Empowered Group in Dimapur.
“After they reach the station, the returnees will be provided with food and will be segregated district-wise. Those from Dimapur, Peren and Mon will be quarantined in Dimapur and the others will be sent to the quarantine centres in their respective districts after completion of screening,” a member of the Empowered Group told this newspaper.
