UP to create quarantine hubs for 1.5 mn amid plans to bring home migrants

The state has estimated that a million migrant labourers could return in two months

Amid plans to bring back nearly a million migrant labourers stuck in other states following lockdown, the Uttar Pradesh government today decided to create quarantine facilities to collectively accommodate almost 1.5 million people.

To be established in all the 75 districts of UP, each of these quarantine centres is targetted to accommodate 15,000-25,000 people.

“In this way, the capacity of all the quarantine centres is estimated to range from a million to 1.5 million in the state,” UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi told the media here this evening, adding the process of geo-tagging these quarantine facilities has also started.

The UP government has estimated that between half-a-million to one million migrant labourers and daily wage workers are expected to return over the next two months. Over the past month, over half-a-million workers have already returned from other states following lockdown.

Recently, the Yogi Adityanath government had deployed 410 buses to ferry back 12,216 UP origin labourers stuck in Haryana after the lockdown. Although, these people had completed their 14 day quarantine period in Haryana, yet they were again medically screened and lodged in the various quarantine centres in their respective UP districts upon arrival, Awasthi informed.

“UP is the first state to embark upon the strategy to bring back its students and labourers stuck in other states,” he said. Earlier this month, the Adityanath government had brought back nearly 10,500 UP origin students stuck in the coaching hub of Kota, Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the government is also gearing up to facilitate the return of nearly 10,000 students of different UP district stuck in Prayagraj (Allahabad).

“The chief minister has directed to deploy a fleet of 300 buses with police escort to take these students back to their native districts. The authorities will also help the students of other states stuck in Prayagraj,” he informed adding the process will be completed in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, the chief minister has instructed officials to increase the capacity of level 1, 2 and 3 covid hospitals in UP and ensure the safety of doctors, nurses and health staff, apart from the supply of N95 masks and personal protection equipment (PPE) kits.

“The UP coronavirus infection and death rate pegged against one million population is among the lowest in the country owing to the success of our lockdown and hotspot strategy to contain the spread of the disease,” Awasthi noted.

The government plans to set up a covid facility in all the 52 medical colleges of the state and take steps to create covid treatment infrastructure in such districts, which lack a medical college.

So far, UP has reported 1,955 coronavirus cases across 59 districts, of which 335 have been discharged, while 31 persons succumbed during treatment, leaving 1,589 active cases.