Lucknow: After three days of arduous journey on foot, the migrant labourers of Uttar Pradesh got some relief Friday as the Yogi Adityanath government decided to partially lift the lockdown imposed hastily by the Centre March 24 amid covid-19 spread, and deployed 1,000 special buses to ferry them to their hometown.
A large number of buses were deployed at the Delhi-UP borders to lift the distressed people who swelled in huge numbers by Friday morning amid food and shelter crisis.
All the buses were fully packed, yet scores of poor were stranded at many places across Uttar Pradesh till the time of going to press as buses were too few in numbers.
Amid the ensuing chaos, the social distancing norms announced by the Centre Tuesday were missing altogether which means lakhs of workers and their kids have been further exposed to corona virus threat, admitted officials.
Massive exodus was seen across Uttar Pradesh since last few days with men and women walking down hundreds of kilometres carrying bags and children on back as they lost jobs and livelihood resources.
Most of them worked as skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labourers in industries, commercial establishments and construction sector. Many run road side stalls all which have been shut up to 14 April just as buses and trains. As many of them are daily wagers they are unable to feed the family or pay the rent which forced them to rush to hometown on foot.
One worker even found dead in Sikandra, Agra Friday morning at roadside where retired in Thursday night. He reportedly walked down from Delhi and was headed to hometown in Muraina.
To prevent the landlords from evicting their tenants in these difficult times, the Noida administration ordered them to charge rent only after a month failing which they would face two-years jail term. “This is too little too late. The government has no plan how to implement this order. Besides, this should be implemented across the States not only in one district if the government indeed wishes to help people,” says a mill worker.
Meanwhile, Yogi has urged workers stranded in far away states like Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala, Bengal and north east states that they should stay put wherever they are. The government has also appointed nodal officers for each state to help UP workers.
Media coverage of distressed people walking down hundreds of kilometres in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states had resulted in pan-India outrage.
People had demanded that the workers must be provided with transport facilities. Many had also criticised the Modi government for being generous to the rich who were brought in by plane from abroad but abandoning the underprivileged population to die on roads even before corona virus kills them.
UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav too had slammed the Yogi government for-what they called as-lack of sensitivity towards the poor.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the unprecedented move this week in a bid to replicate China’s relative success containing the coronavirus outbreak.
It’s something that has never been tried before: 1.3 billion people locked down in one place for 21 straight days.
While India reported 918 confirmed cases of Covid-19 Friday evening with 20 deaths, experts fear that number could increase dramatically over the next few weeks, presenting an unprecedented test for its health system.
