Metro's accident has not deterred Lattipur youths from dreaming of work in Metro

Pappu Yadav had planted a cactus in a tin pot on the terrace of his house here before he set out for Delhi seven months ago to join work. The 25-year-old had also promised his father he would make the family house a pucca structure when he next visits home, in Lattipur village of Bhagalpur district.

Two days after he became one of the three fatal victims from Lattipur in Sunday’s accident at Delhi Metro’s construction site in South Delhi, the family is still looking at the cactus and the half-built house to find strength and come to terms with reality.

Besides Pappu Yadav, Amit Yadav, 25, and Niranjan Yadav, 18, were the other victims from Lattipur among six fatalities in the Zamrudpur mishap. All three were labourers at the construction site — among 45 from Lattipur working to put the Metro on track in time, according to villagers.

Barely out of her teens, Pappu’s wife Nitu has just come to her in-laws’ place and sits ashen-faced. Amid sobs, his mother Sita Devi says Pappu had promised to take his wife to Delhi one day. “That day would never come now.”

Eldest of three sons, Pappu was the family’s sole earning member.

Similar is the scene at houses of Amit Yadav and Niranjan Yadav: burst of rage at the authorities amid the mourning.

The duo’s mothers want to see their bodies one last time before cremation at the Ganga ghats here.

The river, though, has emerged as a scourge for the village of around 8,000. Locals blame the Ganga, flowing barely a kilometre from the village and eroding cultivable land every year, for making almost a third of the local youths to migrate to cities like Delhi, Ludhiana and Surat in search of livelihood.

In the last 40 years, villagers say, annual floods have eroded more than 600 bighas of cultivable land. And when the water recedes, it leaves behind sand that cannot grow anything.

To Delhi, with dreams

Niranjan’s father Awadesh Yadav, 47, says lack of cultivable land made him pull out his son from school after Class VIII. The family, he says, needed the money: “But there was no work here, so he went to Delhi.”

Villagers estimate at least 1,000 Lattipur youths work in the Capital, with 45 employed with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) alone.

Niranjan’s uncle Arvind Yadav says the youths who initially got a job with DMRC said the corporation pays better than most organisations. In areas like Lattipur, with unemployment staring youths at every street corner, that spread like wildfire and more made a beeline for work with DMRC, Arvind says. “Once the chain was built, migration continued — even we began enjoying it since money suddenly started flowing in to the village.”

According to him, barely two out of every ten villagers can be called “well-placed”, with a job either in the Army, or schools and banks. The village, he points out, does not have a “full pucca” house.

Though Lattipur has a high school and colleges in neighbouring Bhagalpur, few continue their education beyond matriculation. Pappu Yadav was in fact among the few who cleared Intermediate from the village.

Though the village elders blame almost everyone — from Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to “our MP” Shahnawaz Hussain, and local authorities to DMRC officials — Sunday’s accident has not deterred Lattipur youths from still dreaming of work outside. Many in fact are open to working with DMRC. “We have to leave the village some day — staying here will mean only playing cards and wasting our life,” Class X student Nilesh says.link