Picture : Twitter / ANI
Clambering on to trains, packed into trucks and buses or simply cycling, hitchhiking and walking, lakhs of exhausted migrant workers have begun reaching home, more than 50 days after the lockdown that began on March 25. Now the country is set to enter the fourth phase of the Lockdown from May 17th as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address to the nation recently.
While they are eager to get back with their families at their homes , it has added another woe. The rise in number of COVID-19 cases too. The cases have raced past 80,000 with at least 2,649 deaths, according to the Union Health Ministry on Friday. While there is no exact count, this includes a large number of those who have returned to their states.
Many people are put into quarantine centres once they enter their states but the incidence of the highly infectious disease rises inexorably, and unstoppably.
Bhopal: A group of migrant workers was seen walking on foot towards their homes in different districts of Madhya Pradesh, amid #CoronavirusLockdown. A worker says, “We started walking from Indore day before yesterday, there is no vehicle. We are going to Chhindwara.” (14.5) pic.twitter.com/bsRLgCVARH
— ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2020
In Odisha, for instance, 71 of the 73 people who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday had returned from other states.
The ‘return of the native’ has also led to a spike in Bihar, which has 940 cases. Migrant workers comprised more than 75 per cent of those testing positive over the last week, state Principal Secretary, Health, Sanjay Kumar said on Monday at a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The number of cases rose from 528 to 707 between May 4 and 10. Of the 179, 150 were migrant workers, including 41 from Delhi-NCR, 36 from Maharashtra and 35 from Gujarat.
Thousands of people, stranded across various parts of India, are pouring into West Bengal too. These include 2,500 students and their families from Kota and train loads of migrants returning from different places, including Kerala.
