Getting away, but no getting out: No transport for onward journey from railway station in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The elated faces of the people alighting from the special trains bringing them home to Delhi fell when they realised after disembarking at New Delhi Railway Station that there was no transport available for either a ride within the city or for onward travel to other states. And while they milled around, trying to arrange some means of reaching home, social distancing became the first casualty of inadequate arrangements at the station for the arrivals on Wednesday.
Akhtar Hussain was among those who found their happy plans disintegrating at the station. Having arrived from Ahmedabad around 8am, the 22-year-old from Jammu had hoped to find a connecting train to his hometown. He waited for more than five hours before managing to hitch a ride to a boarding house, where he will stay until he finds a way to reach Jammu. In a similar predicament were others who had to go to places in Haryana, Punjab, UP and Himachal Pradesh.
Ensuring connectivity for passengers from each train would have swiftly cleared the station and prevented the crowding, pointed out Abhay Srivastava of Ghaziabad, who grumbled that Delhi government could at least have allowed a few buses to take care of the passengers arriving from Ahmedabad, Patna, Mumbai and Howrah on Wednesday. “The government had the details of our journey and destinations,” Srivastava said.
The Ghaziabad resident bristled, “What is the purpose of strict social distancing in the station and on the train when people are forced to fend for themselves immediately on exiting the station and jostle each other trying to find some mode of transport?”
As the trains kept arriving, the lack of transport options led to the crowd swelling outside the station. Atul Kumar Yadav, 18, and Satya Prakash, 23, both employees of an Ahmedabad factory, had shelled out almost all their money to book the train tickets for Delhi. Now they didn’t know how to reach Pratapgarh in UP. “We may have to hitch a ride on a truck or even walk till wherever possible,” said Prakash. “We’ve spent most of our money, and have only a small sum we saved for our onward journey from Delhi.”
For 33-year-old Chandan Kumar, his wife and three daughters, there was no alternative to walking. “There is no transport available and people are standing inches from each other. Even if one of them carries the infection, we are all at very high risk of contracting Covid-19,” he worried.
For Santosh Gupta, the wait felt even longer. With tears in his eyes, the 32-year-old frantically surveyed the crowd around him for clues to reaching Shadipur in west Delhi. When TOI approached him, he said he had arrived from Bihar for the cremation of his father, who passed away six days ago. The train was the only way he could come to the capital, but now he didn’t know how to reach Shadipur. “I am sure I have to pay a big amount for someone to drop me there,” he said.