BHUBANESWAR: A day after the Supreme Court stayed Orissa High Court’s order for testing migrant workers before starting on their home-ward journey, five special trains started their journey from three States on Saturday with 5,000 stranded Odia people.
Odisha Government had cancelled special trains to bring back the migrants after the HC directed it to ensure that only those who test negative for Covid-19 be allowed to board.
Official sources maintained that while three trains will come from Gujarat, one each from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu will leave for Odisha with stranded migrant workers.
One of the five trains has left Surat for Berhampur in Ganjam district while two trains from Ahmedabad will reach Khurda Road in Odisha. One train from Panvel Station in Mumbai will reach Titlagarh in Balangir district and another from Chennai will reach Jagannathpur in Ganjam district. Four trains, except that from Tamil Nadu, will reach Odisha on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, Minister for Commerce and Transport Padmanabh Behera said special trains carrying Odia workers from Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat will arrive in the State in different phases.
“As Odisha Government has told different States not to allow migrant workers to travel in buses in view of series of road mishaps, arrangements have been made for their return by trains,” he said.
The Minister said the State Government is in touch with different States and the Railways to coordinate return of migrants to Odisha. He said arrangements are being made to ensure safe return of migrant workers. “Social distancing is possible only if people travel by train,” he said.
Behera, however, said some people in individual or small groups stranded in different places may be allowed to return by bus or other vehicles. “Some people, who have gone on pilgrimage or for treatment to other states and are stranded, may be given special permission to return to Odisha by buses by maintaining social distancing,” he said.
Earlier, Minister of State for Home, Dibya Shankar Mishra said there is a need for a community-based approach to provide psychosocial support to those returning home.
Building the counselling capacities of community members creates an enabling environment for returnees to become productive for the society, he said and added that support and care in quarantine can keep us all safe.
So far, 52,723 people from Odisha stranded in different States have returned home by train, bus and other vehicles.
Official sources said 14,308 temporary medical centres with 5,75,215 beds have been readied for the returnees in 6,798 gram panchayats to provide Covid-19 health services to the returnees.
4 returnees alight bus in Capital, sent to quarantine centre
Bhubaneswar: Four migrant workers returning from Telangana got down from a bus in the City on Saturday. The Angul-bound migrants alighted the bus before reaching their destination in violation of the Government norms for the returnees.
The youths got down and were sitting on the roadside near Durga Mandap under Nayapalli police limits when some locals spotted them and informed police. Local police rushed to the spot and provided dry food and drinking water to them. Later, police coordinated with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials and shifted the returnees to a quarantine facility in a police vehicle.
“The returnees got down after 11.15 am. Police personnel intervened immediately and with the assistance of BMC, they were shifted to a quarantine centre by 12 pm,” said a police officer of Nayapalli police station.
Sources said the nodal officer at the facility was directed to coordinate with his counterpart in Angul and facilitate the journey of returnees till their destination.
Earlier this week, 12 migrant workers returning from Surat had alighted from a bus at Kalpana Square on Tuesday before reaching their native place. Commissionerate Police has been alert to ensure that people returning from other States do not get down in the City, unless it is their final destination.