LUCKNOW: Though the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to stick to the Central government guidelines in connection with lockdown 4.0 beyond May 17, CM Yogi Adityanath believes that a huge influx of migrants is a big challenge and too much relaxation in curbs could be risky.
The CM made it clear that his government would follow the guidelines issued by the Centre over lockdown 4.0 while ensuring that relaxation did not lead to community spread.
“In my opinion, too much relaxation should be avoided as migrants' return to the state is still going on. We have the dual responsibility of making the migrants follow health protocol while protecting 23 crore people living in the state,” said the CM, while interacting with media persons.
On his part, the CM reaffirmed that his government would be extra-cautious till the migrant influx continued in the state. UP has already received around 14.5 lakh migrants from across India between March 1, 2020, and May 16. In the last 15 days, around 7.5 lakh migrants have come to the state by 415 trains and buses from other states. Moreover, around 19 lakh have registered on the state government portal seeking return to the state.
At the same time, the UP government proposes to give a further boost to economic activity by retail businesses and opening up more industrial units in a phased manner. “The state government has forwarded its suggestions about lockdown 4.0 to the Centre. We are now awaiting the Central advisory,” said the CM.
Yogi, who has been holding deliberations over the next phase of the lockdown with his cabinet colleagues and senior bureaucrats for the past few days, reiterated the directives to the senior officers asking them to ensure that no one walked or used bike to travel back home. He said vehicles should be
provided to migrant labourers to take them to their respective destinations. He also asked senior officers to make an assessment about the availability of labourers in Noida and Greater Noida region and make arrangements for fill shortfall of labourers, if any, in industrial units.
The CM issued strict orders in the wake of a major road accident in Auraiyya on Saturday early morning which claimed 24 lives - all returning migrants of Bihar and Jharkhand.
While the profiling of the migrants is on in the state on the basis of their skills, the state government has authorised district magistrates to allow industrial units to get skilled/unskilled workers from other districts.
It may be mentioned that 119 sugar mills, 12,000 brick kilns, and 2,500 cold storages, etc have continued to function since the lockdown. Most sugar mills have been involved in carrying out sanitization of government buildings, public places, and other areas while the distilleries have been manufacturing alcohol-based sanitizers and there is a growing feeling that economic activity in other sectors could also be resumed following the rules of social distancing and other guidelines.