Caravan of Migrant Workers Flocks Back to India's Uttar Pradesh State Ahead of Lockdown

NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th March, 2020) Hundreds of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh are en route back home before this northern Indian state shuts down for a COVID-19 quarantine as did the entire nation earlier this week.

On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced full nationwide 21-day lockdown starting March 25. Uttar Pradesh authorities have delayed shutting down the state to make sure that all migrant workers have a chance to return home.

Daily wage workers living big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai are now packing themselves into trains and other public transport means - a breach of WHO-prescribed guidelines for social distancing amid the pandemic - to make it back home on time. Many have to walk some 190 miles in absence of any other option.

Sputnik has talked to several of them.

Lalan, one of the returning migrant workers, said "We have no option as who will feed us for such a long period. We are daily wage workers, we hardly have money left, so I am going with my family to my village in the Aligarh district."

Another person, rickshaw puller Ram Kishun, told Sputnik that income has stopped after New Delhi, where he worked, went on lockdown.

"I am a rickshaw puller but after the lockdown I find no passengers. Therefore, it becomes impossible for me to survive here in Delhi. Furthermore, I live and sleep on pavements but police are driving us away from these places. Although it's a hard journey I am taking on foot, but there is no way out," he told Sputnik.

India at the moment has 640 active COVID-19 cases, in addition to 17 fatalities and 66 recoveries.