despite chief minister yogi adityanath promising employment opportunities for migrants forced to return home from other states none of the auto and taxi drivers mumbai mirror spoke to have received any helpmumbai hundreds of auto and taxi drivers who left the city for their native uttar pradesh to escape the pandemic are now waiting to return their savings exhausted emis waiting to be paid and no gainful employment coming their way in ups villages and townsmumbai mirror spoke to close to 35 auto and taxi drivers in five villagestowns across three districts jaunpur pratapgarh and unnao and found all of them waiting for only one event the maharashtra government lifting restrictions on operating taxis and autos currently taxis and autos are allowed to carry only essential services workers advt despite chief minister yogi adityanath promising employment opportunities for migrants forced to return home from other states none of the auto and taxi drivers mumbai mirror spoke to have received any help his threat that other states will now have to seek his governments clearance before hiring from up has also proved to be just empty words several migrants especially those involved in construction industry have already returned to mumbai and delhi and no government agency stopped themthe taxi and auto drivers this newspaper spoke with said they are aware that mumbai is still in the grip of the virus but they have no option but to return we dont own land and employment avenues here in villages and towns in up are zero since our vehicles are registered in mumbai we cant run them over long distances here for shorter fares one cant ask people in the village to pay they are all neighbours or relatives said an autodriver in parsanda village in unnao every third house now has a blackandyellow vehicle parked in its yard suresh lodhi 50 and five other auto drivers drove four days to reach parsanda an may 17 lodhi carried his entire family of five in his auto a resident of santacruz lodhi has been driving autos in mumbai since 1990 he said he has been following news and would return to mumbai as soon as normal auto and taxi operations are allowedin sagara bazaar a small town in pratapgarh district the mh in asif sheikhs autos licence plate gets noticed everywhere if i take my auto out of sagara bazar i will get into trouble with the cops and within sagara bazaar there is no business he said sheikh 38 who is based out of andheri in mumbai arrived in sagara bazaar in a convoy of six autos in his auto were his wife two daughters and a son i am here physically but my soul is in mumbai just waiting for the maharashtra government to allow us to run our business the way it was before this dreadful virus struck he said sheikh purchased a new auto recently his second advt since march i have been unable to pay