Chhattisgarh to quarantine migrants: Singh Deo (IANS Interview)

New Delhi/Raipur, April 30 (IANS) After the Centre decided to relax the norms for migrant workers to travel inter state and reach to their destinations, the Chhattisgarh government has made quarantine arrangements for asymptomatic people to the place nearest to their homes.

Speaking to IANS, Chhattisgarh Health and Panchayati Raj Minister T.S. Singh Deo said, “The migrants should be brought to their native places. They are under emotional stress. After getting them back to their places, we have planned to keep them in primary schools as every village has capacity of 10 beds. So we can keep them there as there are 20 thousand villages in Chhattisgarh with the capacity of 2 lakh beds.

He said the state will issue passes to them at the point of departure and from there they will be tracked to their homes and to their villages.

“we will locate them accordingly and quarantine them. Symptomatic patients will be tested and isolated,” said Singh Deo.

The state has converted all 56,000 primary schools into quarantine centres which have capacity to keep more than 5 lakh people, he said.

“The covid-19 is going to stay with us, as what I am hearing from the experts. Some experts say that it will stay for more than 6 months till 2022. So we have to learn to live with it until vaccine and other medicines are discovered,” Singh Deo added.

The minister said that testing is more important without which containment is not possible.

–IANS

miz/skp/