Reach out to states to better coordinate migrants' return: Adityanath to officials

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday asked officials to reach out to their counterparts in other states for better coordination in bringing the migrants home and urged the workers stranded in various parts of the country to not walk or cycle to reach Uttar Pradesh.

His appeal to the migrants came on a day 16 migrant workers were crushed under a goods train in Maharashtra when they were sleeping on rail tracks during their return home in Madhya Pradesh. They had slept on the tracks due to exhaustion after walking for several kilometres.

Though the government has been running special trains to ferry migrants, many have been walking or cycling to their home states, saying they could not wait for their turn any longer due to lack of food and employment.

Adityanath, whose government sent buses to Kota in Rajasthan to bring back students stuck there, repeated his appeal to the migrants that they should not walk or cycle to reach their homes.

During a review meeting, he also asked UP govt officials to treat those returning to the state with honour, according to an official statement.

The chief minister said those coming from abroad should be screened and kept in quarantine centres before they could be allowed to go home. He asked Chief Medical Officers of all districts to study patient record, prepare a case history and continue pool testing to increase capacity.

The Jansunwai portal is open for registration of those willing to return to their state and the response is good, he said.

He said the government has segregated hospitals to treat COVID and non-COVID patients.

"Due to establishment of separate COVID and non-COVID hospitals in the state, COVID-19 could be effectively controlled," he said, according to the statement.

He said measures should be adopted to run emergency services in the hospitals.

He directed officials to ensure that the lockdown is followed strictly and in hotspot areas, sanitisation and door-step deliver of goods be ensure on priority.

The CM also asked them to speed up the delivery of fodder to cow shelters.