After scores of migrant workers were seen taking the long and hard road home on foot, there was an outrage with people critising the handling and treatment of daily wage labourers.?
With no source of income in sight, the workers were forced to head to their native villages after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day curfew which kicked in on March 25. The lockdown meant no way to travel but foot.
The government of Uttar Pradesh?finally took cognizance of the issue and arranged for 1,000 buses to ferry migrant labourers who are stranded on the border districts owing to a countrywide lockdown.
Officials of the Transport Department, bus drivers and conductors were contacted on Friday night to help the people who were stranded in Noida, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, and Aligarh, among other places, according to the spokesperson of UP government being quoted by news agency PTI.?
"Till late in the night, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was busy issuing instructions for arranging buses for the purpose," the spokesman said, adding that the chief minister?also directed officials to arrange for food and water for such people and their families.? ?
Hundreds of migrant workers continued to pour into Uttar Pradesh from Delhi-UP border in the morning while the UP State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) continued to ferry them to their destinations from different areas of Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar.?
The huge influx of people wanting to go back home meant that social distancing quickly went out of the window at the bus terminals. As crowds packed the buses, the administration later Saturday started thermal screening of the passengers at ISBT?Kaushambi.??
The development saw mixed reactions from people on Twitter - some lauding the UP government, while others questions unorgainsed manner in which things were carried out, thus compromising the whole social distancing drill.??
While it is great to see state governments finally come forward to help the migrant workers, the timing and the manner with which the process is being carried could have major implications.?
With workers in numbers crowding buses, it takes the whole concept of lockdown out of the equation. And assuming even if one worker might have contacted virus, it puts many other people at risk.?
The whole process could have been better planned and migrant workers could have been ferried back to their homes systematically. The miscommunication between UP and Delhi governments also hasn't helped matters.