As Assam’s Covid-19 cases rise, the state government focuses a finger at Rajasthan. The spat began after May 6, when a transport pressed with 43 travellers came back from Rajasthan’s Ajmer Sharif, which is a red zone, carrying five additional cases to Assam.
While one traveller, who indicated manifestations of disease, was tried, the others were sent into home quarantine. At the point when the indicative traveller tried positive, the rest were sent to institutional quarantine and samples gathered. Four additional travellers ended up being infected.
The cases have provoked a reshuffle among key authorities in Assam’s administration, including the work labour commissioner, and changes to the state’s testing protocol. All travellers entering the states will presently be tried rather than simply those demonstrating manifestations. Those from red zones will be given need.
Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma accused the Ajmer locale organization for neglecting to watch physical distancing standards as it dispatched a busload of individuals.
It is a piece of a developing number of lines between states as the mammoth errand of helping migrants get back is gotten under way. On April 29, weeks after lakhs were left stranded by the unexpected lockdown to contain the corona virus, the Centre reported that between state developments for stranded migrant labourers would be permitted. In an ambiguously worded request, it forgot about states to work the subtleties, set up nodal specialists to enlist migrants wishing to travel and guarantee that safety standards are kept up all the while.
It at that point continued to confound states further by declaring that students and “distressed” labourers would be permitted to make a trip across states to return home. What models would qualify trouble, how travellers were to be filtered, was left to the states’ imagination.
With no standardised protocol in place, and limited means to test, screen and quarantine migrants, home states and host states are sparring over the logistics.
Home state blues
While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee declared on April 23 that it would do everything to bring back lakhs of migrant workers stuck across the country, the state has done little to make good on this promise. Despite the Centre’s notification, Bengal, which has shown a high fatality rate for the virus, was slow to open up its borders.
Both Maharashtra and Karnataka, host to a large number of workers from Bengal, complained the state was refusing to give consent for trains ferrying them home. The Gujarat government fumed about a communication breakdown, alleging Bengal officials did not even respond to its requests to accept migrant trains.
Buses from Jharkhand were turned back at the Bengal border, with the latter claiming it had no standard operating procedure to receive migrants.[1]
On Saturday, after a pitched battle with the Centre, Bengal reportedly cleared 10 special trains to ferry migrants into the state.
Host state blues
Maharashtra, which plays host to about 10 lakh migrants from other states, is finding it hard to send them home. For days, Uttar Pradesh refused to allow workers to return from Maharashtra, which has among the highest number of cases in the country. It later relented but not without adding preconditions – migrants would have to be quarantined for 14 days and tested in Maharashtra before they travelled.
Haryana and Karnataka also attached similar caveats. Bihar, which had earlier given blanket consent to migrants returning from Maharashtra, then amended its stance to say it would decide case by case. Odisha was also reluctant to accept returning migrants, Maharashtra ministers claimed.
Train fares
The matter of who is to foot the transport bill has also caused friction. Delhi and Bihar got into a heated exchange after the former demanded reimbursement for sending migrants on a special Shramik train to Muzaffarpur. Delhi claimed the Bihar government must reimburse it for buying tickets in bulk for returning migrants. The Bihar government shot back that migrants would be compensated for train fare at the quarantine centres once they returned. [2]
According to the railways ministry, however, payments seem to have been made largely by the sending state. In Maharashtra, the Congress claimed to have picked up the train fare for thousands of migrants.
The Centre, under pressure to make train travel free, has replied that it was paying 85% of the fare and states only had to pick up 15%. This claim turned out to be somewhat fictitious, since there is no order to that effect. The Bharatiya Janata Party tried to argue that the existing Central subsidies would cover 85% of the fare in special trains for migrants. It also claimed that BJP-ruled states had paid the fares without complaint – a claim belied by the experience of migrants returning from these states.
Whose case?
Meanwhile, Jharkhand accuses Chhattisgarh of sending back migrants who had tested positive. It pointed out that two construction workers who had returned to Palamu district with Covid-19 had spent a month at a quarantine centre in Chhattisgarh. They were symptomatic and their samples had been collected before they were transferred to Jharkhand. But the Chhattisgarh government waited to inform Jharkhand only after they had reached their home state. Many more infected persons could have entered Jharkhand, officials from the state complained.
Chhattisgarh, in its defence, said the test results were only available after the workers had left for home. Besides, a returning worker from Jharkhand also turned out to be infected. An official in Raipur, however, admitted that the state was keen to send back stranded migrants who were creating “law and order” problems. Districts who wanted to maintain their status as green zones were also in a hurry to send back potentially infected migrant workers.
A comparative contention ejected after 20 workers coming back to Jharkhand from Surat, a red zone for the infection, ended up being contaminated. Jharkhand guaranteed the Gujarat government had kept it unaware of what’s going on as it gave them travel passes. The cases added to the single greatest spike in a day for Jharkhand.
It is a stressing pattern: as returning migrants add to new cases, home states are hesitant to get them. While more extravagant host states like Haryana and Karnataka might want to hold migrant labourers back as they reboot their economies, most would prefer not add to their caseload. Assam, for one, sent back the driver of a transport that had carried migrants from Mumbai and is moderate about permitting migrants to return.
As the Centre steps back, providing little by way of support or clear guidelines, there seems to be no state for migrants in India. [3]
[1] https://scroll.in/article/961566/as-lakhs-of-migrant-workers-try-to-go-home-indian-states-spar-over-logistics
[2] https://scroll.in/article/961566/as-lakhs-of-migrant-workers-try-to-go-home-indian-states-spar-over-logistics
[3] https://scroll.in/article/961566/as-lakhs-of-migrant-workers-try-to-go-home-indian-states-spar-over-logistics
Article Witten by- Lavanya Ambalkar
Law Student- (Symbiosis Law School, Pune)
(HRDI Work from Home Internship)
