UP govt plans daily evacuation of 45,000 stranded labourers amid lockdown

Yogi government urges Maharashtra to dispatch 10 trains a day

Uttar Pradesh (UP) will bring home nearly 45,000 migrant workers, aiming to transport in week a million stranded in other states during a national lockdown to contain the coronavirus.

Special trains and buses will transport UP workers from Maharashtra, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Kerala, Uttarakhand and Telangana, said the government on Thursday.

In the past few days, more than 100,000 labourers and students stuck in other states were brought back to UP, and the government has decided to accelerate this process further.

Chairing a review meeting here, chief minister Yogi Adityanath instructed officials to ensure that about 30,000 labourers returned to UP daily by special trains, while making arrangements to ferry 10,000 to 15,000 stranded workers from other states on a daily basis by buses.

 

“So far, 43 trains carrying over 51,000 labourers have arrived at different places in UP, while 13 other trains are expected to arrive by tonight. Besides, we have given approvals for 43 more trains for this purpose. In this way, total 99 trains have either arrived or scheduled to come,” UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi told journalists this evening.

So far, Maharashtra and Gujarat have accounted for the maximum number of trains coming to UP. “We have requested the Maharashtra government to sent at least 10 trains daily so as to speed up the process of evacuating our labourers,” he informed.

Besides, more than 55,000 labourers and students were brought back by buses from Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand since last week. It also included about 15,000 students who were taken to their native districts in UP from the educational hub of Prayagraj (Allahabad) district.

Meanwhile, the CM directed officials to prepare an action plan to absorb inbound labourers in employment in different verticals, including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), one district, one product (ODOP) scheme, dairy, cow rearing/shelter, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), plant nurseries etc.

Under lockdown 3.0, more than 15,000 big and medium industrial units have so far become operational across the state, in addition to nearly 65,000 micro and small entities.

 

“The state government has facilitated the payment of salary and wages to workers totalling Rs 631 crore by about 54,000 units in the state,” Awasthi informed.

Meanwhile, the government is maintaining vigil to curb fake news on social media and has lodged 31 FIRs across the state.

UP has reported 3,059 coronavirus cases across 67 districts, of which 1,130 have been discharged, while 61 persons succumbed during treatment, leaving 1,868 active cases. The daily number of sample testing has breached the 4,000 mark. Now, the state is boosting the facility of emergency and non-covid medical care in the private hospitals.