The Bengal government has decided to prepare a database of migrant labourers so that a health screening can be done when they return home from Covid-19-hit states such as Kerala and Maharashtra.
Lakhs of people from various districts, mainly Murshidabad, Birbhum, Malda, East Burdwan and Nadia, work as masons or day wage labourers in various parts of the country.
Health department officials said as a large number of migrant workers were coming from the affected states, their database was being prepared.
To prepare the database, all grassroots level employees, including field health workers, police personnel and civic volunteers have been asked to go go-door-door to collect details.
“We have already got names of at least a dozen migrant labourers working in Kerala and other affected states. They would enter our district in a day or two. We have communicated with them and their health test will be done before they enter their villages,” said Himadri Ari, the chief medical officer of health, Birbhum.
Prasanta Biswas, the chief medical officer of health in Murshidabad, said once the administration got the names of those returning from the coronavirus-affected states, block health officials would visit their homes and ask family members to undergo tests.
Officials said the database was being created as they had received several reports of “secret entry” of migrant labourers from outside to Birbhum and Murshidabad.
A labourer who had returned from Kerala recently went missing from Birbhum’s Mayureswar when he was told to get a health screening done. “We are trying to trace him,” said a health official.
Manirul Islam, a mason who is now in Kerala’s Kollam, said over the phone: “We are a group of 40 labourers who plan to return home at the earliest as several persons here are affected by the novel coronavirus. We are waiting to get our payments. People of Kerala are repeatedly requesting us to leave.”
Health check-up camps have started at Burdwan railway station and Rampurhat station in Birbhum where several trains arrive from the Covid-19 affected states every day. “The health camp will function round-the-clock to check migrant labourers,” said Arindam Niyogi, the additional district magistrate (general), East Burdwan.
Birbhum district magistrate Moumita Godara Basu said she would sit with the railway authorities shortly to make use of the railways’ infrastructure. Officials said the state would seek lists of passengers arriving at Howrah and Sealdah stations from the coronavirus-affected states.
Railway officials said they had already asked ticket examiners to check and report if any passengers showed flu-like symptoms. “We have taken all kind of precautions on trains to detect sick passengers,” said Ishaq Khan, the divisional railway manager, Howrah.