Migrants, officials forget social distancing norm at stadium

Ludhiana: At a time when cases of Covid-19 are rising in the district with each passing day, the district administration has failed to implement modern health safety norms among migrant labourers community gathered inside the Guru Nanak Dev Stadium for returning back to their home states on Saturday morning hours here.
More than 7,000 migrants hailing from different parts of district reached the stadium for registering for special Shramik trains for going back to their native places. They were forced to stand next to each other without following the social distancing norms.
A visit to the stadium suggested that majority of labourers involved in the ticket getting process were not maintaining social distance norms, especially while standing in long queues. Moreover, there was no proper arrangements of pure clean drinking water. Although, officials were stationed inside the premises for providing clear water but due to large numbers of workers, they couldn’t follow the social distance norms and were standing just next to each other for their turn to come for filling their water bottles.
After hearing that the government had arranged four more Shramik trains for migrant labourers, the migrants had reached the stadium for going back to their home states, but they were denied entry to the stadium by volunteers without prior registration.
Meanwhile, the Railways ran four special trains from the city railway station with thousands migrant workers to Bihar and West Bengal on Saturday here.
A migrant labours, Sushil Kumar, who used to work in a factory at Focal Point, said, “I have been facing several difficulties in managing the items for daily use. We are left with no a single penny to purchase food items for home because we have been thrown out of our jobs by factory owner after enforcement of the lockdown.”