New Delhi sees flood of migrants returning home owing to LPG crisis

At the New Delhi Railway Station, hundreds of migrants can be seen returning to their native places in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh from Delhi owing to delays in deliveries and higher prices in the black market for LPG cylinders. While some plan to return to Delhi hoping the situation will normalise within a couple of weeks, others rely on the security that the village provides through alternative arrangements.

Anju Kumari, a resident of Kapashera in Delhi and a native of Patna, said it has been 15 days since she switched to firewood for cooking after her husband lost his employment when the food stall he worked at shut down. “Our landlord had allowed us to use firewood unlike many of our friends and relatives. But if there is no work, why would we stay back?” she said.

Several migrants that The Hindu spoke to said the village offers an option to permanently switch to firewood or coal, which is less expensive when an LPG cylinder in the black market is available for ₹400-500 per kilogram. “Firewood costs about ₹10 per kilogram. My husband also scourges it enough for both of us for a day. If this is the lifestyle we have to follow in a city too, why spend on rent at all?” Anju asked.

A similar sentiment was shared by Sushila Devi, accompanied by her two sons and a daughter-in-law, who was leaving for her native village in Azamgarh after just a year in Delhi. “I have eight family members. We all work in a toy factory in Jahangirpuri. The expense on LPG has increased significantly. We have been eating from outside for the past one week,” she said, adding that this forced them to leave the city and return to their village. She said it was uncertain if they would come back.

Manoj Kumar from Hajipur had recently brought his parents to Delhi after buying a house in Haiderpur. Working in an IT company and living in a joint family, a single cylinder connection was not sufficient for a family of ten. “A 14-kg cylinder doesn’t even last a month. The gas agency says there should be a gap of 25 days between two bookings. This is not working out for us, so the parents have decided to go back,” said Manoj, who works as an IT employee in Rohini.

Migrants noted that the LPG crisis has brought back older alternatives such as tandoors and kerosene stoves, while newer alternatives such as electric cookers and induction stoves remain expensive.

Nisha and Santosh Rajput, sisters-in-law from Karnal, shared similar concerns. “We are saved because we have always been cooking chapatis in tandoors and on firewood. We had kept it running despite an LPG so we did not face much difficulty in making the switch. However, it has forced all migrants from our neighbourhood from U.P. and Bihar to return,” Ms. Santosh Rajput said.

According to ticket vendors at the Automatic Ticket Vending Machines, at least 10,000 to 12,000 tickets are sold every day, with separate queues at the ticket windows. “At least five lakh persons depart from Delhi from the station. Most of them are from U.P. and Bihar but also other states like Haryana, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and the southern states,” an official said.

The issue of migrants returning to their native States was also raised by senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjeev Jha, who accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of creating an LPG crisis in the city to drive out poor migrant workers. He said the crisis was “not accidental but a calculated move to drive away the people of Purvanchal.” He added that the situation is an even bigger tragedy than COVID-19 as people’s livelihoods are being snatched and people are being forced to migrate, especially when they form the backbone of the city.