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.

Additional reporting by Vivek Chhetri in Darjeeling