A day after the central government announced that state governments can arrange buses to transport migrant labourers to their native villages, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the direction will be impractical for Kerala which has a migrant population of over 3.6 lakh.
During the daily press briefing held on Thursday, Pinarayi Vijayan said that the Centre should arrange special trains for migrant workers who wish to go back to their hometowns.
The Chief Minister pointed out that practising social distancing will not be effective if the migrant workers are transported in buses.
“There is a population of 3.60 lakh migrant labourers in the state in about 20,862 camps. Most of them hail from states like West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Almost all of them have expressed their wish to go back to their families. So it is not practical to take them via bus as there will be a high chance of disease spread,” said the Chief Minister.
He further said that the state had already asked the Centre about deploying special trains for migrant labourers. “The Chief Secretary of the state has once again written a letter to the Home Secretary. If it is a train, then there will also be convenience for providing checkups by the railway. Food can also be provided for the people properly during their journey,” he said.
The Chief Minister cautioned that as everyone expressed willingness to go back to their hometowns, there are chances of a ruckus among the workers on who gets to go first. He directed police officials to prevent such a situation.
On Thursday morning, about a hundred migrant workers in Malappuram district had carried out a protest march, demanding to return home. According to police officers, the people were not aware about the Centre’s order allowing inter-state travel.
In a significant announcement, Pinarayi Vijayan said that the quarantine period of all Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs) who had returned to the state prior to the lockdown, was now over.
Though the Centre announced a 14-day quarantine period for the disease, the state has been following a double quarantine period of 28 days. But a few foreign returnees were reported to be positive even after the 28 days quarantine period.
Meanwhile on Thursday, 14 persons in the state tested negative for COVID-19, while two new people were found to be positive. The two positive persons hail from Malappuram and Kasaragod districts.
Till date, a total of 497 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Kerala. Of this, 383 people have recovered and 111 people are presently under treatment. The state has also witnessed deaths of four COVID-19 positive people, including a four-month-old baby.
To expand its testing strategy, the state had started random testing of people with no symptoms. According to the Chief Minister, 1,508 such samples have been taken and 897 of them have turned out negative so far.
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