Satyendra Pathak, 43, a resident of Daudnagar in Aurangabad, Bihar, an employee of a marketing chain company of Ranchi who got stranded at the Bartand bus depot on March 23 due to the coronavirus lockdown, can’t thank Dhanbad Municipal Corporation enough.
Civic authorities gave him and seven others food and accommodation at the Golf Ground shelter home.
On his ordeal, Pathak said: “I planned to go to Aurangabad and boarded the Patliputra Express from Ranchi railway station on March 22 around 10.25pm and reached Dhanbad junction before daybreak on March 23 to come to know that all trains have been cancelled from March 23 and the state had ordered all buses off roads. I had planned to reach Aurangabad by catching the Dhanbad-Gaya Intercity Express (13305) but I was just stranded.”
Pathak who somehow had reached the bus stand ended up staying in an abandoned office of Bihar State Road Transport Corporation there.
He exhausted all the money he had on him to buy food, to the worry of his wife and two daughters back home in Aurangabad.
On Thursday, he was brought by civic authorities to the shelter with seven others who were also stranded at the bus depot. “We are getting food and beds here,” he said.
Vinod Yadav, 30, whose hometown is Ranchi, but works in Dhanbad, added that he also got stranded due to the lockdown. “I am very grateful to social workers and the civic body who are doing a lot.”
City manager (National Urban Livelihood Mission) of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation Santosh Kumar said they rescued eight persons. “We are putting them up with food and will do so till the lockdown period or till some alternative arrangements are made to send them home,” he said.
The Golf Ground shelter had 23 beds and the Saraidhela one had 50. “Nine people are staying at Golf Fround and 23, including 12 children and six women, at the Seraidhela one. Many are beggars,” he said.
An NGO, Ekjut, is arranging food for those at Saraidhela, he said, adding that the “invisible people”, beggars and the homeless, were the worst hit by the lockdown.
