In lockdown, 250 UP buses to bring home 7,000 students from Rajasthan’s Kota

india

Updated: Apr 17, 2020 16:56 IST

The Uttar Pradesh government is sending 250 buses to bring back 7,000 students stranded in the coaching hub of Rajasthan’s Kota due to Covid-19 lockdown.

The move came after the “#sendusbackhome” campaign of the coaching students started trending on Twitter two days ago.

“The Uttar Pradesh state government has sent around 250 buses from UP that will reach Kota tonight (17 April), ” Divisional Commissioner, Kota, LN Soni, told HT.

The buses with coaching students will depart from Kota to UP tomorrow morning, he said.

The officer added that covid-19 screening of all the students of UP will be done prior to sending them home.

Ritik Babu, an IIT-JEE aspirant from Jhansi, said: “I am feeling relieved as my family and I were concerned about each other during covid-19 lockdown”.

“Finally, I will now be able to meet my family,” he said.

Another student Suman Sahni, from Ballia, said: “I completed my course a month ago, but I decided to stay in Kota for further preparation. Suddenly, due to lockdown I could not return home”.

“I was missing my family as I was alone here in Kota,” he said.

Bihar had objected to Kota administration’s decision of making passes for students to return to their home states.

Later, the Kota administration stopped making passes due to which over 30,000 students were stuck there. Around 10,000 students have already returned to their home states.

Several students from other states, except UP, are in waiting mode as their governments have yet to decide on bringing them back.

There are around 6,500 students of Bihar, 4,000 from Madhya Pradesh, around 3,000 from Jharkhand, 2,000 from Haryana, another 2,000 from Maharashtra, and 1,000 students from North East and around 1,000 students from West Bengal, said Naveen Maheshwari, Director of Allen Career Institute in Kota.