CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has chalked out a plan to facilitate the return of people from the state stranded in other parts of the country, 37 days after the lockdown kicked in.
The government will on Friday host a portal that will enable people from the state to self register themselves along with details of the place where they are stuck. Similarly, guest workers and people from other states can use the facility to self-report. They can also report whether they want to stay back or return to their native places.
Based on the data generated by the self-registrations, the team set up for the purpose will act. “We are working out certain modules to help them reach home safely,” additional chief secretary of revenue and disaster management Atulya Misra told TOI.
Misra, the nodal officer, will “regulate issues relating to the movement of people, including pilgrims, tourists, students and migrant workers, who are stranded in different places due to the lockdown,” said chief secretary K Shanmugam in an official communication to secretary of the Union ministry of home affairs.
The government has been taking various factors into consideration before bringing back people caught elsewhere. “We want to know whether they are willing to come on their own or they are seeking transport facilities. Volunteers and NGOs are willing to support them,” said Misra.
The authorities want to be ready with quarantine facilities, particularly institutional facilities, for people coming into the state from the containment zone. “We are also working out a strategy to facilitate people travelling from distant places. They have to pass through containment zones, inter-states and inter-districts borders without hardship.”
Sources said the government authorities would interact with their counterparts in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which account for the most number of guest workers in Tamil Nadu, to work out the mode of transport for their return journey. “Majority of migrant labourers in the state are from north and eastern states. It is not a good move to ferry them in buses. The Centre should operate trains for them. The state government is willing to take labourers from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala states in buses,” said a senior bureaucrat, preferring anonymity.
M Muthamil Selvan of Perambalur’s Makkaikulam and 200 others have been stranded in Rathnagiri in Maharashtra since March 24. “We protested on Wednesday, demanding that the authorities let us go home. The officials here said they will make arrangements, if our (Tamil Nadu) state government is willing. They have also collected information about each of us from parents to village names…,” 26-year-old M G Vignesh of Kanykumari’s Kottar village. He and other booked tickets expecting the 21-day lockdown would be lifted on April 14, but were disappointed. “We are yet to receive the money spent for the tickets,” said Vignesh.
It is still unclear how the self-reporting portal will help hundreds of uneducated and daily wage workers, without smart phones.
The government will on Friday host a portal that will enable people from the state to self register themselves along with details of the place where they are stuck. Similarly, guest workers and people from other states can use the facility to self-report. They can also report whether they want to stay back or return to their native places.
Based on the data generated by the self-registrations, the team set up for the purpose will act. “We are working out certain modules to help them reach home safely,” additional chief secretary of revenue and disaster management Atulya Misra told TOI.
Misra, the nodal officer, will “regulate issues relating to the movement of people, including pilgrims, tourists, students and migrant workers, who are stranded in different places due to the lockdown,” said chief secretary K Shanmugam in an official communication to secretary of the Union ministry of home affairs.
The government has been taking various factors into consideration before bringing back people caught elsewhere. “We want to know whether they are willing to come on their own or they are seeking transport facilities. Volunteers and NGOs are willing to support them,” said Misra.
The authorities want to be ready with quarantine facilities, particularly institutional facilities, for people coming into the state from the containment zone. “We are also working out a strategy to facilitate people travelling from distant places. They have to pass through containment zones, inter-states and inter-districts borders without hardship.”
Sources said the government authorities would interact with their counterparts in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which account for the most number of guest workers in Tamil Nadu, to work out the mode of transport for their return journey. “Majority of migrant labourers in the state are from north and eastern states. It is not a good move to ferry them in buses. The Centre should operate trains for them. The state government is willing to take labourers from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala states in buses,” said a senior bureaucrat, preferring anonymity.
M Muthamil Selvan of Perambalur’s Makkaikulam and 200 others have been stranded in Rathnagiri in Maharashtra since March 24. “We protested on Wednesday, demanding that the authorities let us go home. The officials here said they will make arrangements, if our (Tamil Nadu) state government is willing. They have also collected information about each of us from parents to village names…,” 26-year-old M G Vignesh of Kanykumari’s Kottar village. He and other booked tickets expecting the 21-day lockdown would be lifted on April 14, but were disappointed. “We are yet to receive the money spent for the tickets,” said Vignesh.
It is still unclear how the self-reporting portal will help hundreds of uneducated and daily wage workers, without smart phones.
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