Centre's Grim Message To Supreme Court: One Third Of Migrant Workers Could Be Having Covid-19
For days now, scores of migrant workers have been seen taking the long and hard road home. There has been an an outrage with people critising the handling and treatment of daily wage labourers.
Reuters
With no source of income in sight, the workers were forced to head to their native villages after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day curfew which kicked in on March 25.
While some had undertaken the journey home on foot, governments in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi took cognizance and arranged buses to ferry migrant labourers who were stranded on the border districts owing to a countrywide lockdown.
The huge influx of people wanting to go back home meant that social distancing quickly went out of the window at the bus terminals. As crowds packed the buses, it laid bare the unorganised process of how things were carried out and a systematic failure, that has now puts lives at risk.
Reuters
The whole process could have been better planned and migrant workers could have been ferried back to their homes by more organised means. There should have been steps taken to screen the workers and proper check should have been conducted to ensure they they don't carry any coronavirus related symptoms.
The failure to do so has put hundreds of lives at risk, if not thousands, with government telling the Supreme Court on Tuesday that there is a possibility that three out of 10 people moving from cities to rural areas are carrying the COVID-19 disease.
The submission was made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre in the hearing on two public interest litigations (PILs). The hearing was held by video conferencing.
Referring to the last census, Mehta who addressed the court from his office chamber, said there were about 4.14 crore people had migrated for work, but backward migration is now happening due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The court has directed the Centre to ensure that migrant workers kept in shelter homes are given food, medical aid, and also asked it to take assistance of trained counsellers and religious leaders of all faiths to help the migrants overcome their panic as ¡°panic will destroy more lives than the virus¡±.
Such a move to ferry labourers could have major implication in days to come, but government will be hoping their fears don't turn into reality.
Coronavirus cases in India rose sharply to 1,637, the health ministry website showed today, a jump of 240 cases in a single day. The death toll from COVID-19 has also increased to 38 as three more deaths were confirmed.
