Safety Measures by Govt Must for Mass Movement of Migrants
| Major General Dilawar Singh - 25 Apr 2020

By Maj Gen Dilawar Singh 

New Delhi, April 25, 2020: 

A large number of migrant workers, students and tourists are stranded in distant States and are keen to return to their Native places. The government needs to plan this mass movement while ensuring that the workers required for restarting essential industries are retained by the host States to prevent shortage of workers on one hand and ensuring the safety of people returning reroute and quarantining to prevent virus spread in their native areas.

It is learnt that some chief ministers want to bring back migrant workers/tourist/yaatri from other States where they are stranded/want to return.

Covid19 is migration dependent on infection. It's difficult to verify who is carrier in among migrants. The magnitude of the migrant being moved back to their native Districts is huge. 

It involves many lakh workers to be moved from different States to long distances.

  • A 2 % error can nullify the gains of lockdown fully
  • This may involve large staging areas
  • Require large receiving areas/quarantine facilities
  • And detailed planning, control and perfect management

This requires Directive Mandatory Instructions to be issued by center to States.

Directive instructions should be issued to Host States to retain maximum workers as they will be required for operations in departments, services, industries and offices allowed to or about to be allowed to open by providing essential accommodation, food and essential support.

Directive instructions should be issued to all The States, to include clear instructions for Host States, Enroute States and Native States separately for all relevant aspects.

Those workers, students and tourists who have to be returned to their native States/Districts be identified, categorised, documented and moved in a fool proof planned manner to prevent even a single error.

As an example, the migrant labour from northern India is essentially from UP, Bihar, WB, Jharkhand and MP etc.

They will have to pass through areas like Sonipat/ Bahadurgh/ Najafgarh and /Gurgaon/Faridabad.

The staging areas would have to be planned outside these cities and the movement would preferably use the EPR and WPR to avoid Delhi.

Adequate separate staging areas with packed food, water and essential first aid for journey will have to be issued at staging areas, in case of emergency cases Enroute screening too may be catered and holding arrangements for suspected people should be collocated with staging areas.

Ambulance, escort and highway police be deployed Enroute as done for VIP move. Pilots & escorts should accompany the convoys from start to finish of district boundaries, where next set of similar escorts takes over to prevent any slip always Enroute.

The receiving districts will have to create proper large / adequate quarantine facilities appropriately equipped for the entire duration.

The complete data management for the entire operation must be planned and managed correctly.

We are hopeful that the Governments will consider this suggestion and issue the necessary directions on one hand and create a proper strategy involving all stakeholders including the local administration and public interest.

Most Industries would be willing to institute steps for safety and security of their workforce and start production to minimize losses to the National Economy, they would be able to do this better in case the directions, facilitation and support of the Government is available.

Image Courtesy - TV9 BharatVarsh / India TV / Tribune India

(Writer Major General Dilawar Singh has served in numerous senior level Government assignments in sensitive zones where he has planned and managed large scale movements of Army, Paramilitary, Armed Police convoys as well as large contingents of Youth from across the country through staging areas in intermediary States reroute; He is SVP, Global Economist Forum of UN; an ex-Infantry officer, who has served six tenures in Terrorist areas, commanded two Counter-Terrorist Battalions and is the only officer to have received three citations therein; He presently heads a global youth initiative and is engaged in developing Patriotism and Nation-building among the youth. https://bit.ly/39v63o8

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Indian Observer Post and Indian Observer Post does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.


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