Shramik spls took 27k home, UP buses sent another 40k

Noida/Ghaziabad: Alongside the countrywide repatriation of migrant workers to their home states, buses have been evacuating thousands from NCR to other parts of Uttar Pradesh.
Shramik Special trains and buses have taken about 10,000 workers from Noida and 17,000 from Ghaziabad home so far. But in small numbers, no more than 25 in a bus, the two NCR cities have sent far more home to towns and villages within the state — 15,000 from Noida and 25,000 from Ghaziabad. These are 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 began doing so on May 6.
And from Sunday, the Noida administration is hitting the gas pedal on the plan, adding a fleet of 400 buses for intra-state movement — 200 to take migrant workers home and 200 to get them to bus stops and the Dadri railway station. In addition, all district administrations have been asked to keep aside 200 private buses on standby.
“We have around 300 buses for Noida, most of which run on CNG. By Sunday night, we will have 200 more CNG buses and 200 diesel-run buses,” said Anurag Yadav, assistant regional manager of the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, which has been operating these buses. “We are asking people not to walk,” said Noida DM Suhas LY. “Until now, about 450 buses have taken small batches of migrant workers home from over 25 shelter homes in the city.” That can go up ten-fold now.
So far, both Noida and Ghaziabad had been picking up migrant workers on their way home and moving them to shelter homes before organising bus trips home. “We quarantine them at shelter homes for 14 days, and then take their travel information. When there are the requisite 25 people from one place or along one route, we send a bus,” the Noida DM said. In Ghaziabad, nodal officers have been appointed to collate this information.
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 most the destination has been Bihar. Others have been going to Jhansi, Jaunpur, Prayagraj, Badaun and Aligarh.
Now, the process will be supplemented with an online registration system. On Saturday, the administrations of both districts uploaded a Google Form for migrant workers who want to leave their cities but have not been able to register on the Jansunwai portal. In Noida, 25,000 registered within a day. Officials said that buses along shorter routes will now ply daily and those along longer routes will run every two to three days. On their way back, buses will pick up migrant workers walking on the road and drop them off further along the route they are taking, a UP government order said.