BAJURA: Dharma Sarki of Jhalgaun in Triveni Municipality of Bajura had been living in India for 20 years. Sarki who had been working and living in Karol Bagh, New Delhi along with his wife and a daughter arrived in Nepal about four months ago on April 16 following closures of businesses with the surging cases of COVID-19. A daily wager, Dharma Sarki had never thought he would have to return to Nepal amid such uncertainties.

The migrant returnee possesses neither any land nor a house in his home village. Meanwhile, his family has been taking shelter at their relatives' home since their return. The family had stayed in a quarantine facility for 16 days upon their return to the village following which they have been facing problems due to lack of food and shelter.

Dharma said, " I have already sold whatever land and property I had. I don't even have a penny to my name now, so my family's survival depends on borrowings," and expressed concern over the length of time on which could he continue living on others' mercy.

The Sarki family came across the news that Triveni Municipality would provide relief to those hit hard by the scarcity of food and shelter amid COVID-19 crisis. However, they have not received any relief to date. Dharma Sarki said that he has not received any food grains from the authorities, adding, that his family was in such state that the possibility of them dying from hunger is larger than facing the same consequence at the hands of coronavirus. He lamented that local representatives and government have not taken his struggle seriously.

According to Triveni-8 ward chair Bhim Bahadur Thapa, the municipality did distribute relief items to some returnees from India in the beginning but it could not continue providing relief to others as the budget has been spent for controlling the spread of the virus and on establishing quarantine facilities.

It has been widely reported that those that have returned from India after losing jobs due to businesses closing down can be found in each and every village in the district.

The family of Ambika Karki of Kolti in Budhinanda Municipality-2 recently returned home after having lived in India for six years. Ambika and her husband Ganga were working and living in the Indian capital along with their six children.

Ganga had returned home to attend the funeral of his mother in Bajura on February 14. After carrying out the last rites, he headed back to India but he was stranded at Nepalgunj border due to nationwide lockdown imposed by the government to curb the spread of coronavirus, on March 25.

Then after, Ambika along with her children also came to Nepalgunj where they reunited with Ganga and started living in a rented room. Unfortunately, Ambika's husband fell to death from a house roof after two months. After the incident, she along with her children left Nepalgunj for their home village.

Apparently, Kalamati did not even have enough money to buy a shroud for her husband's funeral. Consequentially, she could not perform the 13-day rites. She carried her husband's body not very far from the quarantine centre, where she buried him. Kalamati could not afford a shroud, neither did she have any money to buy incense sticks to carry out the rituals.

She, along with her four children, stayed in the quarantine facility for 25 days. The municipality had arranged for the meals at the quarantine facility. But after she returned home, her problems only worsened.

Her house was damaged due to lack of maintenance. As such, her family has been sheltering at one of the villagers' home. She expressed her grief as she was clueless about the means to make an earning to afford food for her four children. The municipality ward-2 office had provided Kalamati's family with 30 kilograms of rice, according to ward chair Dammar Mahat. The ward chair, however, expressed that the office can only do as much."For how long can the poor family live only on the relief support from the ward office?" Mahat questioned.

These are just a few representative cases of the people who have recently returned home from India and are struggling to survive in lack of support from local representatives.

The statistics of the Bajura District Health Office shows that a total of 8,381 people who have lost jobs in India have returned home during the lockdown. All of them were sent to their homes after placing them in quarantine for a set period of time.

Budhinanda's Deputy Mayor Shristi Regmi shared, "The returnees from India have not been provided with any relief or other support although the budget was allocated to provide transportation expenses for Dalits and other marginalised communities."

The majority of returnees placed in quarantine could not get relief provided by the municipality. By the time they were due to return home, the distribution of relief items had already stopped, according to executive member of Triveni Municipality, Hari Nepali.

Afterwards, many other people returned home from India and they have been facing problems due to shortage of food.

In Bajura, a total of eight local levels except Budhiganga have announced budget for the current fiscal year. But none of the budgets includes any programme to solve the issues faced by the migrant returnees.

Badimalika Municipality Mayor Padam Baduwal said, "At present, floods and landslides have taken over all other issues so the local government has not been able to pay attention to other problems."