LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh will be the first state in the country to bring home its migrant labourers stranded in other states. After returning, they will be quarantined for 14 days in government shelter homes and then would be sent home along with food grain and cash.
UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Friday issued directives in this connection to his officials giving them 14 days to bring the labourers back home.
Prior to this, a week ago, the UP government had brought over 10,500 students from UP who were stuck in the coaching hub of Kota in Rajasthan. The UP government had sent around 250 buses equipped with all the facilities to follow the health protocol during the lockdown to ferry the students.
Since then the demand to bring back migrant workers holed up in relief camps in different states had been gaining ground.
“He has directed officials to talk to the governments of states where our labourers are stranded and prepare a list to facilitate their arrival in UP. He has also issued directives to make arrangements for the requisite 14-day quarantine of all the migrants who would come back,” said UP Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Awasthi, here on Friday.
The UP CM asked officials to conduct this exercise in a phased manner. Later in the day, CM Yogi took to Twitter to inform people about this decision. “We will bring back all the labourers who belong to Uttar Pradesh and who have completed 14-day quarantine period in different states. We will send them to their homes. I have asked officials to prepare a state-wise list of such persons so that they could be brought back in a phased manner,” said the CM.
He added that before bringing them back to the state, all the labourers would go through screening and testing to ensure that they were COVID-19 free. “Then they would be sent to their native districts by buses. In their home districts, these labourers will again be quarantined for 14 days and then will be sent off with a kit containing food grains and other essential items along with cash of Rs 1000,” said the CM.
Moreover, the state government intends to absorb all these labourers in the state by creating job opportunities for them. In this light, the CM has asked government departments to prepare plans for creating jobs for 15 lakh people in the next six months so as to help those countless construction workers and daily wage earners who have lost their livelihoods in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CM instructed the department heads to submit their "concrete roadmaps" to the government within a week for implementation.
Adityanath told his team of 11 that it was imperative to lay a strong foundation for the state’s economic development and job creation post-lockdown, and the work should start now. So far, the state has disbursed cash handouts of Rs 1,000 each to more than 25 lakh daily workers and 15 lakh small vendors across the state.
The state has dispatched a team of three senior administrative, police and medical officers to 18 districts, which have reported over 20 active coronavirus cases. These officers will stay put in their respective districts for a week, enforce the lockdown strictly and ensure that the medical norms were being followed properly.