LUCKNOW: Scenes of utter chaos and clamour were witnessed in Ghaziabad Ramlila ground as thousands of migrants gathered there and jostled to get registered for the train journey to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Monday. Six trains - three each for UP and Bihar - were expected to leave Ghaziabad to ferry the migrants of respective states to their native places.

According to sources, thousands of migrant workers descended in the Ramlila ground for travel passes after knowing that three shramik special trains would run from Ghaziabad to different districts of eastern UP. The workers flouted the social distancing norms to the hilt as scores stood in cramped condition. The district administration too failed to control the crowd.

Taking cognizance of the incident, CM Yogi Adityanath directed the DM, SP and other officials to rush to the ground to ensure sanity and enforce norms of social distancing.

Even NDRF teams also took positions later in the day. They helped district administration make arrangements for water, food and ration kit to those leaving the ground.

Subsequently, the DM AS Pandey and SSP reached the spot and migrants were arranged in queues ensuring social distancing in the afternoon. According to ADM City, Ghaziabad, most of the people gathered had tickets. But apart from them, a huge crowd gathered for whom district administration was making arrangement of 50 buses to take them back to their respective native places. Everyone was issued travelling passes.

A local source claimed that the Aarogya Setu app indicated the presence of a corona positive person in the periphery of 500 metre in the ground.

Shramik Special trains and buses have so far ferried about 10,000 workers from Noida and 17,000 from Ghaziabad to their native districts. Around 15,000 from Noida and 25,000 from Ghaziabad have gone to their home districts so far.

These additional numbers are those workers who had not registered on the Jansunwai portal to register for Shramik Specials. Noida had started this small-scale planned movement a month ago and Ghaziabad commenced the process on May 6.

Authorities of Ghaziabad and Noida has been picking up migrant workers on their way home and moving them to shelter homes before organising bus trips home after 14-day quarantine at shelter homes.

In Ghaziabad, the UP government has appointed nodal officers to collate the information about the migrants. “Based on that database, we requisition a bus from UP roadways,” Ghaziabad DM Ajay Shankar Pandey said. The buses leave from Morta and only go up to districts within UP.

In fact, most buses from Noida and Ghaziabad have been heading for Kushinagar, Gorakhpur and Dewaria — border districts from where arrangements have been made for the workers’ onward journey, and for the most, the destination has been Bihar. Others have been going to Jhansi, Jaunpur, Prayagraj, Badaun and Aligarh.