Bagalkot: The spike in COVID19 cases in Bengaluru is having an effect on all residents of Bengaluru, not the least the migrants. unskilled and semi-skilled migrants made a noise and were sent home and now its the turn of skilled migrants and the techies to leave…quietly. Techies from North Karnataka are abandoning the city for their home bases. Most of the buses operating to the districts of North Karnataka from Bengaluru have been running full for the past few days. The reason is not far to seek. There were 1172 cases on Saturday in Bengaluru. That’s a single day’s COVID experience.
A report in the New Sunday Express quotes Siddramappa Navalgund, a software engineer and a resident of Kamalanagar in Bengaluru, “Every day, the Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru are seeing a drastic rise. This has created panic everywhere. We have decided to lock our home and leave for Gadag, our hometown, for about a month or till the situation returns to normal.” The report says that he has been living in Bengaluru for the past two decades. He said, “Since cases in Bengaluru are rising rapidly, the tech firm where I work has given permission to work from home for the next two months. And my father, who works in a private company, has tendered his resignation due to the COVID fear. We feel safer in our hometown than Bengaluru.”
The report also cites the case of Anil Myageri, a resident of Lokapur of Bagalkot. He said 12 people, including him, from the surrounding villages, work in automobile companies located in and around Kengeri and Bidadi. “We are all friends. Our parents started panicking when they heard of the COVID surge in Bengaluru. After taking the permission of our respective managers, we all returned to our hometown on Friday,” said Anil.
Speaking to The New Sunday Express, Govinda Reddy, Chief Executive Officer of Vijayapura Zilla Panchayat, said, “It has come to our notice that after the rise in Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru, people in large numbers are returning to their hometowns. We cannot insist on home quarantine as they are intra-state travelers.” “However, we have brought this to the notice of the State Government and are waiting for their guidelines,” added Govinda Reddy, Chief Executive Officer of Vijayapura Zilla Panchayat.“We will wait for the guidelines for the next couple of days. If not, we will come up with a plan to address this issue. At present, I have directed the Panchayat Development Officers of all the villages to maintain a separate record of people returning from Bengaluru. We are creating awareness among the villagers not to panic,” he said.
