JAJPUR/KALAHANDI: Despite State Government guidelines that mandate migrants workers to register their vehicle of transport in its Covid-19 portal (https://covid19.odisha.gov.in) before starting their journey, 105 workers returned from Surat to Jajpur on Monday without giving the travel details. Of them, 53 belong to Jajpur block, 16 are from Dharmasala, 20 from Rasulpur, six each from Bari and Barchana, two from Binjharpur and one each from Sukinda and Korei blocks.
The Jajpur administration has erected a check post at the district border near Chhatia on NH-16 to check vehicles and give permits to migrant labourers to enter the district. The 105 migrants, who came in two buses from Surat, reached the check post in the morning. When the buses were stopped by police deployed there to check the incoming vehicles, the drivers could not produce permits to travel from Surat.
Receiving information, district administration officials reached the spot and took them to Mahapurusa Hadidas College at Chhatia for medical screening. Collector Ranjan Kumar Das said although the workers had registered their details in the Covid portal, they arrived without any vehicle permit. Instead of Surat administration arranging vehicles for them, the workers had hired two buses to return to their native places.
The Collector informed that all of them have been sent to institutional quarantine facilities for the next 14 days. Their swab samples will be collected and sent for test on Tuesday. “The migrant labourers have been asked to strictly abide by the quarantine norms failing which, they will face action under Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Epidemic Disease Act, 1897,” the Collector said and warned that no migrants will henceforth be allowed to enter the district without registration.
Similarly in Kalahandi, as many as 117 migrant labourers of 30 families returned to the district from Khamam district of Telangana on Sunday without registering in the State Government’s Covid portal. They were working in a cashew nut plantation in Khamam.
The workers along with six children were given passes from Khamam administration to travel to their native places in trucks. They returned in two trucks and one pickup van. However, they returned in the vehicles violating the social distancing guidelines and none of them wore masks. Their sudden arrival left the local officials worried as the latter was not prepared to medically screen or quarantine them. The vehicles were detained at the inter-State border on NH-26 and they were shifted to quarantine centres near their villages. Among them, 20 are from different villages of Golamunda block and 97 belong to Koksara block.