The UP government earned 21 lakhs from the bicycles seized from the laborers in the lockdown, the pictures are telling the pain of migration

The Uttar Pradesh government deposited Rs 21 lakh from the thousands of cycles confiscated from the workers going towards their homes in the lockdown. Saharanpur district auctioned 5400 such confiscated cycles of laborers, which the laborers could not come to collect. Why did the administration have to auction the bicycles of thousands of laborers.

Thousands of bicycles seized from laborers in Corona lockdown are lying in a deserted ground in Saharanpur in the form of junk today. A token of the number written on the cushions of these cycles was given to those laborers. But the laborers who returned hundreds of kilometers away might have neither the courage nor the money left, who would have come to collect the junked bicycles after spending the rent. Therefore, after waiting for two years, the administration auctioned more than 5000 cycles of laborers for Rs 21 lakh. However, Jeetendra, who bought these thousands of cycles in the auction, is also upset.

Saharanpur contractor Jitendra told that the administration had announced to auction 5400 cycles, we had taken it for 21 lakh rupees, if we counted, there are only 4000 cycles. There was a loss in buying these cycles in the auction.

During the lockdown, a large number of laborers started migrating from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal by bicycle. In such a situation, Saharanpur became the hub of the migrating laborers. The boundaries of three states meet in Saharanpur. For this reason, the administration brought here the workers migrating from Punjab, Haryana and Himachal.

Two years ago, the administration was stopping the migrating laborers. During this, his bicycle was confiscated and he was quarantined. Then they were sent by bus and train. But their cycles remained here. Now the contractors who took the cycles of these laborers in the auction are putting 1200 rupees for each cycle, but buyers are not being found.

People said that these are laborers’ cycles, we had come here that cycles would be available cheap, but everything is old and has become junk.

The pictures of the suffering of the workers in the Corona lockdown must have been blurred in your eyes now, but even after the end of the lockdown, the lives of the workers are still scattered like these cycles. After the pandemic, there are now government claims of everything being good on one side. On the other hand, these cycles remain a symbol of the great exodus of laborers.