The Goswamis and the Aroras live along the state borders of Delhi and Haryana. They feared the hostility of the administration if they were caught violating the lockdown, even as they scourged for food and rations.

On the first day of the national lockdown, on March 25, the Delhi government was prompt to announce that it will enhance the quantity of subsidised food grains given under the National Food Security Act to urban poor, from five kg a month to 7.5 kg. Under the public distribution system, the government provides food rations to 72 lakh residents, which is less than 40 percent of Delhi’s total population of 1.93 crore.

Social activists, however, point out that nearly 70 percent of Delhi’s population — nearly 1.3 crore people — live in slums, jhuggi jhopdi or “JJ clusters”, village settlements, and resettlement colonies. Delhi’s ration lists, like in most other states, is based on the 2011 census but Delhi’s population has grown since then.

In a crisis like this, when lakhs of migrant workers who live in Delhi have lost access to daily wage work or temporary work contracts, many more need support with accessing food and minimum nutrition.

The long road to find food

A few states such as Haryana have passed orders that impose penal sanctions that criminalise migrant workers found on the roads.

On March 29, Navdeep Singh Virk, the Haryana additional deputy general of police for law and order, had issued a letter noting “jay-walking on the roads with luggage/family members is completely prohibited”. Anyone violating the lockdown would be turned back, the letter said, and could be arrested under the Disaster Management Act and kept at indoor stadiums which would serve as “temporary jails”.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that all establishments and public transport would remain closed till April 14, thousands of migrant workers — many of whom live and work at constructions sites, offices, workshops premises, highway hotels, or precariously on rent in slums in cities — began walking towards their villages, hundreds of kilometres away, on foot.

On March 29, the union cabinet secretary and union home secretary, in a video conference with the heads of the civil and police administration of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi, ordered officials to take steps to prevent this large-scale movement of low-income migrants on foot.

Workers living along the Delhi and Haryana border now battled both hunger and coercion.

Geeta and Nakul Goswami had stopped on the sidewalk outside Calista Resorts, a hotel that organises luxury wedding banquets on the highway. Migrants from Dhanbad in Jharkhand, 1,200 km away, they live with their five children in Dundahera near the Delhi-Gurugram border. The Goswamis had left home when they heard food packets were being distributed nearby.

“Someone told us that food was being distributed at a Krishna temple near Kapasheda Extension to those with ID cards,” Geeta said, a handkerchief tied over her face to protect herself from the coronavirus. “We walked to the temple with our Aadhaar cards...but we found nothing there. We tried to walk further but the police chased us back.”

“We heard there’s a food distribution point near Appu Ghar and are trying to reach there,” she continued, referring to a beach-themed water park spread over one million square feet in Gurugram, 10 km from where they stood.

Geeta and Nakul carry head-loads at construction sites and sweep factories in Udyog Vihar and the Gurugram industrial area. They earn Rs 280-300 on the days they’re able to find work.