An inadvertent situation and lack of means of living forced a UP migrant worker to sell his wife’s jewellery in Kannauj to buy medicines and food for his family.
The migrant worker was forced to return to his hometown along with his family after his landlord in Tamil Nadu asked him to leave the house. The family was compelled to sell their jewellery at a local market for Rs. 1,500 to make ends meet.
The worker, Sri Ram, hailing from Fatehpur Jasoda village in Kannauj, around 150 km from Lucknow, had migrated to Tamil Nadu three decades ago after his marriage.
He used to sell ‘kulfi’ in the southern state’s Cuddalore town where he lived with his wife and nine children at a rented home. In the third week of May, they were asked to vacate the house by the landlord and therefore returned to their village on May 21.
However, there was no end to their struggle. ‘We got 10 kg of rice and grain each from the government when we returned. But we are a large family and that we ran out of ration soon. After this, my mother and two siblings fell ill. My father tried to get work but was again jobless in two days,’ NDTV quoted Raj Kumari, one of Sri Ram’s daughters, as saying.
The family had no ration card, no job card under the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), or rural jobs scheme. They tried to acquire a ration card but were told that new ration cards were not being issued anymore.
Finally, their plight was taken note of by the district administration who then sent a team to investigate the matter. Rakesh Mishra, Kannauj’s district magistrate, said: ‘I sent a block development officer and a supply inspector to the village to investigate. After an inquiry, we found that this family had come to their village about two weeks ago and had initially gone to one of our transit camps. They were registered and we gave them a ration kit for 15 days. They did not have a job card so we got one made for them and we also got a ration card made for them. Now they have no problems,’.
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