Vijayawada, Apr 26 (IANS): Desperate to return home due to the ongoing lockdown, four migrant workers embarked on their bicycles from Vijayawada to Agra.

The youth were found peddling their bicycles on the outskirts of Vijayawada. They said they wanted to return home and be with their families.

"With no money in hand and a total lockdown, how can we survive here? We want to be with our families in these difficult times," one of them said.

The daily wagers were settled in this Andhra Pradesh city for a couple of years. Agra is more than 1,600 km from Vijayawada, but the youth said they were determined to face all odds to reach home.

Migrant labourers in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are desperate to return home. Despite the assurance by the governments in both the states that they will be provided food and shelter, they have only one demand: send us back to our homes and, if you can't make any transport arrangement, allow us to go.

During the last one month, authorities in both the states stopped several migrants who had embarked on the journey on foot to reach their destinations. Most of them were from Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha.

In a tragic incident, a 12-year-old girl, working in Telangana's chilli farm, died after walking for three days to reach her home in Chhattisgarh.

Jamla Makhdam, who was part of a 10 -member group, collapsed and died when she was just an hour away from home in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh.

The group had walked nearly 150 km from Kannayaguda village in Jayashankar Bhupalapally district.