New Delhi: The national lockdown has forced tens of thousands of migrant labourers to trudge hundreds of kilometres to their native villages. But the risk of community transmission, which is inherent in such a mass exodus, has constrained the Centre to direct the states to strictly follow the nationwide lockdown norms and stop the influx across the cities.
Not content with mere advisories, which the states are often known to disregard, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, through video conferencing on Sunday morning, instructed the Ministry of Home Affairs, state Chief Secretaries and Directors General of Police, to "seal" the district and state borders.
The Centre further wants the migrants to stay put where they are and has advised the states to arrange shelter, food and other facilities for them at their workplace.
The influx is mostly of daily wage earners, who are fleeing to their villages in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, unsure of the future in the big cities – the economic powerhouses -- where they no longer have jobs or food. But most of these migrants had already hit the road when the Centre decided to tell the States to seal the borders.
Now, they find themselves stranded in middle of nowhere – they can neither retrace their steps, nor stay put where they are. For most, it is the point of no return.
PM Modi, of course, has his good reasons for enforcing a total lockdown which, he is convinced, can alone break the chain of COVID-19 transmission.
But with thousands converging at bus terminuses, many of them without ma-ks, the omniscient threat of corona virus has become more real and potent.
The packed buses, where the migrants are crammed like sardines, have derailed the government’s avowed objective of ensuring social distancing. To bring the lockdown back on track, the states have been asked to stop incoming buses at the border and place the occupants in a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Food and other essentials should be made available to the people during this period, the Centre has said. It did not specify, however, where such a large mass is to be quarantined. And the risks that are inherent in such an exercise.
Also, the Centre’s advisory says action should be taken against landlords who are asking such tenants to vacate their dwellings. Besides, employers should pay the workers for the lockdown period. However, though the Centre has the best interests of the nation at heart, such advisories may not be feasible on ground zero.
The Centre needs to appreciate the social and economic impulses that are making the migrants flee. The Centre’s directive further states that only movement of goods should be allowed. But that has become for many an exercise in subterfuge as the containers often contain human cargo and not essentials. Coronavirus pandemic is fast becoming a humanitarian crisis, not seen since the 1971 war.
