A migrant complained of mismanagement at the centre.
Scores of migrants are huddled together behind the iron gates of a Prayagraj college, jostling for bananas, biscuits and water bottles in a viral video. In the absence of a proper system of distribution, the workers are seen violating the social distancing rules enforced to check the spread of coronavirus. The city administration has been severely criticised on social media for not making proper arrangements for the migrants.
The video was recorded at Prayagraj's CAV college - a 'collection centre' - where the migrants coming from Madhya Pradesh had halted for rest before being sent to their native districts in UP. The local administration had arranged for refreshments for the travellers. However, instead of distributing systematically, the video shows, local officials handed out food items from behind the iron gates. The migrant, tired from their arduous journey, scrambled for food.
A Prayagraj official later issued a clarification on Twitter. "It is not a quarantine centre. It's CAV college where migrants from Madhya Pradesh are resting during their transit. Bananas were distributed among them when this chaos started, so distribution was stopped immediately. Later it was distributed in the buses when they all sat on their seats," he said.
A migrant complained of mismanagement at the centre.
"I have come from Bhopal and I have to go to Rae Bareli. Food is not being arranged properly. We are not allowed to go outside and we got nothing overnight (to eat). Now we have received biscuits, and bananas are being distributed. But drinking water is a problem," he told reporters.
Last week, two mobile videos surfaced that showed people at a coronavirus quarantine centre in Agra scrambling for essentials like tea, biscuits and water from behind the locked gates of the facility.
In one of the two videos, 25 seconds long, a man in protective gear is seen throwing biscuit packets close to the gate and people from the other side stretch their hands to try and reach them.
After the centre's permission, most of the state governments in the country are bringing home their migrants workers, who have been stranded in other parts of the country because of the lockdown.
The centre on Friday said it will run special trains to take migrant labourers, students, pilgrims or tourists back home amid the COVID-19 crisis.