VIJAYAWADA: Amid spiking Covid-19 cases and fearing a fresh lockdown, a large number of migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were seen heading home from Vijayawada Railway Station on Sunday. One among them was G Dev Singh, a 32-year-old who works as a daily wager at a mango orchard at Adavinekkalam. “We are a group of five men from Agra who come to Vijayawada by the first week of March to pack harvested mangoes. The rising cases has forced us to go back even when we can work here for a couple of more weeks,” he said.
Shivam Dutt, from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, works at a spinning mill in Ganguru and has been living there for five years. “My family is panicking with me so far away from them and as the coronavirus is spreading so rapidly. They call me multiple times a day to ask how I have been here. So I decided to go back home and offer moral support to them.
After observing the migrant workers’ rush at the railway station, the South Central Railway (SCR) Vijayawada Division has intensified precautionary measures to ensure that the virus does not spread among the passengers. The passengers are allowed to enter the station only after their thermal screening, and sanitisation of their luggage.
At Pandit Nehru Bus Station students in good numbers were seen heading home after the government closed schools for classes 1 to 9 students. “At present, we are operating regular services to longer destinations such as Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, other Rayalaseema cities, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Visakhapatnam, by adhering strictly to the Covid-19 guidelines. There is no unusual demand from passengers. There might be a demand during the weekends as the students are going back home,” said deputy chief traffic manager G Satyanarayana.