No clubbing of returnees from different states in quarantine centres: Govt

BHUBANESWAR: To reduce spread of coronavirus among migrants at the quarantine centres in the villages, administration of several districts have planned to segregate migrants on the basis of the place they return from.
The district authorities said the ones from Mumbai, a hotspot, won’t be allowed to stay in quarantine with the ones from Telengana even if they belong to one village.This will help check transmission of the virus from asymptomatic carrier (if any) to others.
Ganjam Collector Vijay Kulange said since the migrants are coming in trains, they head to quarantine home from the railway station as per pre-fixed destination. “The Surat returnees have been kept in separate quarantine homes. In no situation, migrants returning from Mumbai will be sent to same quarantine home although space remains vacant there or the migrants belong to one village,” he said.
Officials said it won’t involve much hard work to segregate the migrants coming from different places as in a particular panchayat, there are four to five quarantine centres considering the rush of expected migrants. “If we keep the Mumbai returnee in one quarantine centre, others in the same panchayat will be kept reserved for migrants coming from other destinations. They won’t be allowed to meet or mingle also as there will be strict vigilance,” said an officer.
The migration prone districts such as Balangir, Ganjam, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Kendrapada, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore and Kendrapada have now geared up to increase vigilance at the quarantine centres so that migrants staying there don’t mingle.
Collector (Balangir) Arindam Dakua said since it is difficult to know who is infected and who is not, it is safe to keep them in separate accommodation. “Migrants from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Gujarat, Bengaluru and Kerala will be coming to the district. So, a migrant coming from less affected state shouldn’t be allowed to share accommodation with the one from highly affected state,” he said.
So far, Ganjam district has recorded close to 154 corona positive cases and all of them are Surat returnee. Another migration prone district Balangir so far has recorded two cases, who had returned from Tamil Nadu. With more than 93,000 migrants registering themselves on government portal to return to their natives in Balangir district alone, the worst is yet come to the district, which mostly witnesses unskilled brick makers returning from south Indian states around this time of the year.