Stranded migrants, students can now go home, but process is not that easy!

The Union home ministry has rolled out new lockdown guidelines, or we can say, has amended its earlier guidelines to allow inter-state movement, in an attempt to give “considerable relaxations to many districts”.
 

The new guidelines would come into effect on May 4, but here’s something you need to know before that.
 

Here's a look at how you can commute interstate according to the recent guidelines released by the central government:
 

The Union ministry held a comprehensive review meeting on the lockdown, on Wednesday. In which, they have observed a “tremendous gains and improvement in the situation due to lockdown till now”.
 

The ministry has appealed to people to strictly observe the lockdown guidelines until May 3 to ensure that these gains were not frittered away.
 

Well, speaking of the new guidelines, here’s a look at how you can travel:
 

All migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students, at el, stranded at different places due to the lockdown can now travel back to their respective places.
 

However, the process isn’t that easy as it sounds.
 

So far, the number of Covid-19 positive cases has crossed 33,000-mark and more than a thousand people have died, according to the Worldometer data. Therefore, extra measures have been taken despite relaxations in the travel restrictions.
 

Now, if you wish to travel from a state to another, say for example Haryana to Rajasthan, both the states have to mutually agree to the movement.
 

If you wonder how, here’s how it works. First, visit either of the states’ websites. Now, here you have to manually find which particular website a state has allocated for the purpose.
 

In this case, I can either apply at https://emitraapp.rajasthan.gov.in/emitraApps/covid19MigrantRegistrationService

Or

https://saralharyana.gov.in
 

For traveling from Haryana to Rajasthan.
 

You have to be quite careful while selecting the ‘Migrant Movement’. In this case, since I have to travel to Rajasthan I will opt for ‘inward movement’ while applying at Rajasthan govt’s site and vice-versa.
 

Rest is easy, provide all the requisite information about yourself, in case you’re the one travelling and submit the form.

The new guidelines don’t allow inter-state movement by railways and airways, but by road, so, people having private vehicles might find it comparatively easy to commute.
 

However, buses shall be used for the transportation of groups of people. The ministry has mentioned that these buses will be sanitized and the travellers will be seated keeping in mind social distancing norms.
 

Also, the regions falling en route will have to allow these movements.
 

So, what next. Upon receiving the approval, you can travel. First, you will be screened en rout to your destination. If found asymptomatic, you can proceed.
 

Now, on reaching your destination, a local health authority will assess you and you would be asked to keep yourself in home quarantine for some time unless your assessment doesn’t require institutional quarantine. A regular check up will be done and you would be kept on watch for some time.
 

For this, you might be asked to use the Aarogya Setu app so that your health status can be monitored.
 

Now, some are seeing these amendments as an indication that the nationwide lockdown could be extended beyond May 3 with some additional relaxations. To this, we would rather wait for the Prime Minister to officially announce his next plan.