Driven into corner, migrants drive down home in taxis, autos

Hit hard by the lockdown and desperate to return home, thousands of migrant workers are moving out of the COVID-19 hotbed of Mumbai in droves for their native places several miles away, many of them in taxis and autorickshaws, leaving behind tales of despair.

Union sources in Mumbai pegged the number of 'kaali peeli' taxis (traditional black & while taxis) and autos leaving the metropolis at around 1,000 and 5,000, respectively.

With possibility of further extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, several auto and taxi drivers are going to their native places in their vehicles.

The National Highway Number 3, also called Mumbai-Agra Road that touches Indore in Madhya Pradesh through a bypass road, is seeing a steady stream of autorickshaws from the country's commercial capital as people move back to their native towns and villages amid the lockdown that has rendered them without any means of livelihood.

Officials and eye-witnesses put the number of these three-wheelers from Mumbai crossing the Indore Bypass Road at 50 every hour.

Among them is Baleshwar Yadav (54), who is going to his native village in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh, with eight people, including two women and three children, cramming into his three-wheeler.

"I have been driving an autorickshaw in Mumbai for the past 12 years. But everything is closed there now. I spent two months digging into my savings but that, too, has run out. I have no choice but to return to my village," he told PTI on Monday.

Asked about the possibility of returning to Mumbai in the near future, he replied, "Whether it is six months or a year, I have to return because I still have to pay installments on the bank loan with which I bought this vehicle. Till the situation normalises in Mumbai, I will engage myself in agriculture and cattle rearing."