With no work, no money and no food, migrant worker Dayaram Kushwaha, 28, faces a new challenge. With his wife Gyanvati and his son to feed, he has no choice but to leave Delhi. 

The lockdown has left him with no work as the construction site is shut now. Site managers no longer come to the intersection where Dayaram and many others like him stand, hoping to pick up work.

Since all transportation is suspended, hoisting his son on his shoulders he takes a journey of 428 kilometers, on foot, to reach his village. He is not thinking about what would happen once he got there, with empty pockets instead of the money he usually sent home to help support those left behind. At least he would have a home.

By dusk on the second day, Dayaram and around 50 others from his extended family had reached a deserted expressway running south out of the capital. The family were hungry, thirsty and tired, and the police were never far away. 

Every time they stopped to rest, officers would shout at them to keep moving in single file, to maintain distance from one another to avoid spreading the virus. Officers are under orders to enforce the lockdown, but on that day they were allowing people to move.

Millions of migrant workers like Dayaram did the same after the sudden announcement of the lockdown. Jayati Ghosh, an economist said, "The government should have made arrangements for these people. They could have arranged for trains to send the workers home, since they knew that the lockdown is going to last longer." Although the government managed to evacuate thousands of Indians stranded in foreign land, it ignored the plight of the underprivileged of the country.

Millions of workers are still stranded either on the way in temporary shelters or in cities. For most of daily wage earners, buying food is impossible as they earn six dollars a day for survival. Now with no means to find work, many are not even getting one meal a day. 

Agnivesh, a social worker who is providing two meals to the migrant workers in Delhi, said, "They are the worst hit. If we do not give them food they will die of starvation. They contacted us a few weeks back they had been starving. We contacted our friends and raised fund. Initially we could not provide for all but now with more people donating we are able to get them two meals a day."

The government has announced three months free ration for all National Food Security Act beneficiaries, but the beneficiaries could hardly receive the full quota. 

Government data is based on 2011 census but in these ten years about 100 million more people are waiting to be added to the list of beneficiaries. Millions in India are facing starvation already. 

(Cover: Homeless people practice social distancing as they wait for food during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New Delhi, India, April 3, 2020. /Reuters)