COVID-19 Lockdown: Migrant labourers walk miles to reach home; chokes Delhi-UP border.

Hit by a sudden 21-day lockdown and no transport, hundreds of migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The labourers are walking for days to reach their homes from the Delhi-NCR region and Gujarat, about 200 to 300 km away. Thousands of migrant workers and daily wage workers crossed over to Uttar Pradesh carrying their children, bags and any other belongings from the National Capital Region (NCR) to their homes in Uttar Pradesh and beyond.

Left penniless with the sudden closure of their factories, the workers said they had no option but to trek home on foot.

Scenes at the Delhi-UP border today. Complete failure of State and Central administrations, to not have foreseen this, to not doing anything about this.

Suffice it to say that lockdown would begin in earnest after a week. #CoronvirusLockdown. pic.twitter.com/vXhGXlQgPU

— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) March 27, 2020

10,000 migrant workers from Delhi and Gurgaon crossed over from the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border in Ghazipur.

The migrant workers had left their homes for a better livelihood working as construction labourers, factory workers, vegetable vendors, rickshaw pullers and a myriad of other jobs. Due to the lockdown, they are unable to earn a living and feed themselves.

Maybe they can’t understand ongoing r constrained…
Where r d concerning authorities..
If we can airlift from abroad thn why there is wide gap here… #MigrantsOnTheRoad#migrantworkers pic.twitter.com/bGrYpyT3Df

— SAGAR DWIVEDI (@SAGARDW44697547) March 28, 2020

The Delhi government was making arrangements to feed the workers and they did not need to leave the city, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told NDTV. The sight of multiple groups of migrant workers stranded on the state’s borders has also prompted the Uttar Pradesh government to act. They have arranged a thousand buses to ferry these migrant workers back to their homes.

In some places, the workers are taking a desperate measure to return home. Maharashtra Police on Thursday found over 300 migrant workers holed up inside two container trucks meant for carrying essential commodities from Telangana to Rajasthan. A team of police and revenue department officials stopped two container trucks coming from Telangana in the border district of Yavatmal in Maharashtra for inspection.

#MigrantsOnTheRoad #CoronaUpdate #migrantworkers
Show this video Indian government
And plz .plz. help them pic.twitter.com/eBOAnpz26h

— Asruddin Ruhani (@AsruddeenS) March 28, 2020

The Indian government in its rush to institute a nationwide lockdown, offered no formal help to poor migrants. But it was different for the elite citizens stranded abroad because of the pandemic: The government organized special flights to bring them home.

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Also Read: COVID-19 Lockdown: Migrant worker Bunty and his heartbreaking fight for survival