NDMA asks states, UTs to ensure visible police presence at migrant relief camps

New Delhi: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has asked states and Union Territories (UTs) to ensure visible police presence at all alighting points at the relief camps set up for migrant workers. "Strict quarantine facilities of two weeks duration must be geared up accordingly at all the temporary shelters," NDMA member secretary GVV Sharma wrote in a letter to all states and UTs in the country. Nearly 21,000 camps have been erected across the country to house more than 675,000 migrant industrial labourers.

The Centre has urged the states and UTs to utilise accredited social health activists, National Cadet Corps, Ayush students and National Service Scheme volunteers for field surveillance and ramping up surveillance, clinical management, quarantine and isolation facilities to help contain the outbreak. It also said doctors drawn from the army, paramilitary and railways be engaged at isolation centres. Earlier, Union cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba had highlighted the gap in monitoring of international passengers by states and UTs and said the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) had shared a list of 150,000 arrivals. He had asked states and UTs to immediately strengthen surveillance of international air travellers who entered India from January 18 to March 23.

At Tablighi Jamaat’s headquarters in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, the gathering of foreign and Indian workers has resulted in more than 400 positive cases across India. More than 800 foreign workers travelled to 12 states on March 21, setting off a chain of Covid-19 spread. According to official estimates, about 2,100 foreigners had visited India for Tabligh activities, from January 1onwards this year.


Most of them travelled on tourist visas, valid for six months, till June. “On March 28, state police were advised to collect the names of Indian Jamaat workers from local coordinators, locate them , get them medically screened and quarantine them,” a senior home ministry official told ET.