More than 50 migrants gathered at Assamese Bhavan in Chennai on Saturday hoping that they will be leaving for their hometowns but were told that they cannot leave the city for a few more days.
"We vacated the house because we were told that a special train will leave for Assam today. But we are told to wait for a few more days for train travel. Now, we have nowhere to go," said Jonah who hails from Assam.
" We registered with the state government portal for travel online. The Assamese Bhavan helped with the registration. We have been patiently waiting for a call on the journey but we learnt that a few others from Assam have managed to travel by train this week. There was some miscommunication as we were told that there is special train today and we can finally go back home. When we went to Assamese Bhavan, we came to know that were are not in the list," said Jonah.
His sister Ikanelleh worked in a beauty parlour till March 22. That is also the last time she received her salary. With no work and no salary, she was not able to pay a rent of Rs 5000 for April and May. The free ration that the state government provided got over and now she says they don't have the essentials to cook.
"I was earning 10,000 a month till March. As the lockdown began, I did not get my salary. The little savings we had was spent for rent for the month of April. We did not have money to pay this month's rent. We desperately want to go back to our family because each day we stay here, we don't know how to manage with food and stay," Ikanellah told News 18.
For now, they are hoping for relief from the Tamil Nadu government. "Travelling by foot is impossible," they say and are hoping the government arranges a special train for them at the earliest.
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