Exodus of migrants continues
Crowding and complete chaos at bus terminals across Delhi NCR
Large groups of migrant workers, with their belongings packed in cloth potlis or stuffed into bulging backpacks, continued to walk to Delhi’s Anand Vihar bus terminal and Lal Kuan bus stand in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad throughout Saturday after walking on foot for hours from areas in Delhi, Gurugram and other places.
There was crowding and complete chaos at the bus terminals as thousands of men, and some women and children, searched for buses that would take them to their respective home towns. The 21-day lockdown imposed from Tuesday midnight rendered most migrant workers
unemployed and penniless, and has thus triggered a mass exodus from cities in several states.
On Saturday, the Uttar Pradesh government arranged for 1,000 buses to ferry migrant labourers who are stranded in border districts. But migrant workers are not just from
Uttar Pradesh. Many of them are headed to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and in the absence of busses have been walking to their native places.
“Delhi government has also deployed 100 buses to help the migrants who are walking back to their home states. Though I would still appeal to people to please follow the lockdown... Don’t put your life at risk by stepping out,” said Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who visited Ghazipur, near DelhiUP border, where people have gathered in huge numbers to board special buses for their homes in UP. States have been asked to set up relief camps for migrant workers. Delhi government has converted schools into night shelters to accommodate stranded migrant labourers. “We have made arrangements if they (migrant workers) want to stay at night shelters. The Delhi government is in a position to feed the entire city,” Mr Sisodia said.
As per the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government has committed all support to migrant workers during the lockdown period — Amit Shah, Home minister