Cuttack: Migrants workers continue to return home without registration through rural routes

CUTTACK:  Despite check posts on all inter-state roads along Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, migrant workers continue to return home without registration through rural routes. But lack of monitoring on their arrival by the district administration has raised serious concerns.

To evade the mandatory registration, screening and quarantine, the migrants working in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are returning home in a clandestine manner in fear of the infection of ‘AP variant’ which is said to be several times more damaging or deadly than other prevalent variants.

Though the authorities have sealed all the highways and main roads connecting the two states, rural roads in the bordering villages are still being used by the migrants to enter Odisha without any restriction. To avoid police checking, they prefer to return via porous village roads in the wee hours when cops are remaining less vigilant with weakened enforcement activities.

On Thursday at about 5 am, a local noticed some migrants getting down from four goods vehicles near Regeda village under Narasinghpur block. When he followed them, they immediately concealed themselves on the premises of a local temple.

The villager, however, informed about the return of migrants to local tehsildar Alok Kumar Dehuri and Block Development Officer (BDO) Pradip Kumar Sahu who rushed to the spot and started tracking them.
All the 93 migrants who had returned in a clandestine manner have been quarantined at a temporary medical centre (TMC) set up on the premises of a local college, said the BDO.

“Steps are being taken to collect their swab samples for Covid test. Those who will be tested negative for the virus will be allowed to go home and those testing positive will be kept in the TMC,” said Sahu.
“The State government might have shut the borders’ doors but it seems to have lost sight of the real threat - the porous borders in rural areas along the two neighbouring states.If such trend continues, the situation may worsen with spread of AP variant virus in the district,” opined a health expert.