As around 31 lakh stranded labourers already reached their native states with the help of more than 2,317 sharmik special trains since May 1, many states have witnessed a surge in coronavirus cases.
Going by the last one week figures, states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Odisha and West Bengal are witnessing sudden surge in Covid-19 casess, which is a major challenge before these states in coming days.
After infamous tablighi episode, which witnessed a sudden spike in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Bihar and Assam in the first two weeks of April, now big reverse migration of present history through land and rail routes, are a new challenge for the Centre and states.
For states, arranging hundreds of camps, food and sanitation facilities, establishing quarantines centres at border areas and in villages, screening and testing of these migrants are not going be an easy task as lakhs of migrants laboures still waiting for their turns are likely to be back to the native place in the coming days. The figures are likely to increase from June 1 as Railway opened its more services with around 200 trains a day from different states.
Bihar, UP, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Rajasthan are the key states, where maximum sharmik special trains are reaching since May 1. The onus is now on these states to arrange 14 days of quarantine for the travellers and their strict monitoring. They will be discharged after following the complete health SOP. With poor health infrastructure at district level, bigger challenge for these states is to follow these SOP like enhancing the surveillance and their contract tracing. Facilities and infrastructure quality of many quarantine centres are also under question.
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