The nationwide tally of Covid-19 cases crossed 1.45 lakh on Tuesday with states like Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Odisha reporting a significant rise in their numbers amid the large-scale return of migrant workers from other states.
The numbers also rose further in the worst-hit states including Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, while Delhi, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, among other states and union territories, also reported more new cases.
Indian Railways has ferried over 44 lakh migrant workers on board 3,276 ‘Shramik Special’ trains since May 1. According to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, an additional 41,673 people had traveled to their home states via flights till 5 pm on Tuesday.
To control the fresh spike in cases created by the mass movement, several states on Tuesday announced mandatory institutional quarantine on arrival for all.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court directed the central and state government to immediately provide adequate transport arrangements, food and shelters free of cost to migrant labourers stranded across the country due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the Modi government failed in controlling Covid-19 outbreak through the nationwide lockdown. The Congress leader asked the Centre to share it’s Plan B to contain the pandemic.
Fresh spike in cases due to migrant movement
Several states have been attributing the increase in their tallies to the arrival of people from outside in special trains, being run since May 1 to ferry migrant workers to their native places, and special international flights that began on May 1 to bring back stranded Indians and expatriates from abroad. Besides, domestic flights have also begun since Monday in a phased manner.
During a review meeting on the Covid-19 situation in Odisha, which saw its tally rising to 1,517 with 79 new cases, CM Naveen Patnaik said a new strategy would be needed to deal with the pandemic.
“With flight and train services having been restored, the next 15 to 30 days will be challenging, but I am sure we will be able to handle it all in a professional manner,” he said.
Over 40 thousand passengers return home via flights
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri said that at least 41,673 passengers had returned to their home states by 5 pm on Tuesday – day 2 of flight operations in India since the lockdown on March 25.
Hardeep Puri said that airports in India handled 325 departures and 283 arrivals by Tuesday evening.
Even as the minister claimed smooth operations on the airports, a case of Covid-19 among passengers on a flight to Coimbatore had set off the alarm bells. A doctor, who travelled on Chennai-Coimbatore Indigo flight Monday, later tested positive for novel coronavirus. The doctor has been shifted to ESI Hospital for treatment and flight staff has been grounded for 14 days, while the airlines is tracing everyone who was on the flight with the doctor.
Rahul Gandhi terms lockdown failure
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the four phases of the nationwide lockdown have “failed” and not given the results that Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected.
Addressing an online press conference, he urged the Centre to spell out its strategy for “opening up” the country and expressed concern that India is the only country which is relaxing the lockdown when the virus is “exponentially rising”.
The ruling BJP, however, said the doubling rate of coronavirus infection has fallen to 13 days from three before the lockdown and called it a “success” of India.
BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Modi government’s decision to impose the lockdown has ensured that India suffered much less than countries like the US, France and Spain. He took a swipe at the Congress, saying it is doing politics at a time when the nation is fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
发表回复