Coronavirus: Haryana government provides over 800 buses to UP to ferry migrant workers to their villages

The Haryana government has provided over 800 state roadways buses to Uttar Pradesh to ferry migrant workers stranded on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border to their villages, officials said on Sunday.

The decision was taken in view of the current situation on the border with large number of migrant workers assembling near Anand Vihar bus terminus, Haryana Transport Minister Mool Chand Sharma told PTI over phone.

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"The UP government had made a request to us to provide nearly 1,000 buses," he said.

According to a senior official of the Transport Department, 825 Haryana Roadways buses reached Ghaziabad on Saturday night and since then these have been at the disposal of the Uttar Pradesh government.

"The buses have been sent from Karnal, Panipat, Sonipat, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Gurugram, Faridabad, Palwal and Nuh, the places in Haryana which are close to the national capital," he said.

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The buses have been sanitised, drivers and conductors provided masks and hand sanitisers and all other necessary precautions are being taken, he said.

On Saturday evening, chaos, confusion and a stampede-like situation prevailed at the Delhi-Ghaziabad border as hundreds of migrant workers fought amongst themselves to get seats on the limited number of buses the Uttar Pradesh administration operated to ferry them to the hinterlands.

Hundreds of migrant workers from Delhi, Haryana and even Punjab reached Anand Vihar, Ghazipur and Ghaziabad's Lal Kuan area after taking arduous treks of many kilometers on foot to take buses to their respective native places

The imposition of a nationwide coronavirus lockdown has left migrant workers with no means to earn a living, forcing them to undertake long journeys on foot to their far-flung homes in the absence of any means of transport.

Delhi, as well as industrial towns in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab, employ thousands of workers from states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.