The three Gyne brothers of South 24-Parganas had boarded the Coromandel Express on Friday to try their luck in Andhra Pradesh, with work under the 100-day rural job scheme having dried up in Bengal because of the Centre stifling funds. All are now dead.
The plight of Nishikanta, Dibakar and Haran Gyne of Chharankheli village in Basanti has once again brought into sharp focus the acute crisis in the rural areas because of the Centre’s refusal to release funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme to Bengal for over a year, citing irregularities. As there is no work under the MGNREGS, considered to be the lifeline of the rural economy, people from Bengal have been forced to leave home to work as migrant labourers across the country.
Till Saturday evening, at least 31 people from Bengal, mostly migrant workers, had died in the triple-train accident in Odisha’s Balasore.
The Gyne brothers, in their 30s and married, had boarded the Coromandel Express on Friday to travel to Andhra Pradesh where they had found work as paddy sapling planters.
“Work under the 100-day job scheme was not available in the village. So, the brothers had to move out to earn a living. They had planned to build a pucca house and live together, but their attempts to find a living cost them their lives,” said Ashim Gyne, a relative.
Residents said that every year several residents, mostly youths, go to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to harvest paddy or to plant paddy saplings. “For such work, there is an assured daily wage of Rs 700 to Rs 800 per day,” said a resident.
Ruksana, a young homemaker at Baluaghat village in the Chanchal sub-division of Malda, lost her husband in the accident.
Ruksana’s husband Maskerul Alam, 24, was on his way to Chennai on the Coromandel Express.
Ruksana, who has two minor children and her mother-in-law, said: “He used to work at a brickfield here but had got injured. Since then, he wasn’t getting a suitablejob and decided to head for Chennai. I don’t know how I will run the family. He was the only breadwinner.”
The story of the Naiya family from Canning of South 24-Parganas is similar. “Six members of our family, including uncles and cousins, boarded the train to Chennai. Only Robin, my brother, is alive,” said Rekha Mondal Naiya, a member of the family.
The accident also claimed the lives of two youths from Jalpaiguri. Sagar Kheria, 30, who was from the Nagrakata tea estate, was coming home on the Yeshvantpur-Howrah Express while Tarun Roy, 30, was going to Chennai on the Coromandel Express.
Trinamul pointed fingers at the BJP government at the Centre. “Because of the Centre’s decision to stop giving funds (to Bengal) for the MGNREGS, many of these people were forced to head for far-flung areas to earn a living. The BJP legislators of the state should answer the people,” said Abdur Rahim Boxi, the Malda district president of Trinamul.
Shankar Ghosh, the BJP MLA of Siliguri, responded: “The flight of so many migrant workers from Bengal to southern states has again exposed the Bengal government’s failure to create job opportunities.”
