An alarmed Bihar government is gearing up to face the rising number of cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the state, especially after trainloads of mostly asymptomatic migrant labourers came back and many of them tested positive.
Bihar has seen the number of Covid-19 cases rise steadily and it has picked up in the last 10 days, coinciding with the return of migrants. There were just 66 cases of the coronavirus disease in the state on April 14 and now it has reached 646, with 119 cases adding from May 5-10, mostly from amongst migrant workers.
Sanjay Kumar, principal secretary of the department of health, said out of the 49 people who tested positive on Saturday 44 are migrants and had come back from different parts of the country.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar has already directed officials to do random testing in districts and strengthen isolation wards at the block level with more beds and facilities, as the number is set to grow.
“The focus has now shifted to the panchayat and block levels, as it is where the migrants will spend their mandatory 21 days at the isolation centres. The figures say that Bihar will need to move more cautiously now with migrants, including those from foreign countries, returning in large numbers,” a minister, who did not want to be named, said.
“We got a hint of it long before special trains started running, as some people still managed to reach the state through makeshift arrangements or on foot and later tested positive despite being asymptomatic. Some of the districts reported their first case through migrants and later more cases were detected during contact tracing,” the minister added.
The spread has engulfed the entire state—from just 12 districts in Bihar with Covid-19 cases at the end of the first phase of the lockdown to 30 at the end of the second and 37 of the 38 districts midway through the third phase—raising concerns for the government machinery.
Bihar has an estimated 40-45-lakh migrant population working across several states, though there is no definite statistics on it. More than 29 lakh migrants had registered with the Bihar government app to avail Rs 1000 assistance to them, though the number is expected to be much higher.
“We knew the challenging phase for the state will begin with a large number of migrants returning to their native places and the government has made plans accordingly on the lines of what the state did during Kosi tragedy,” said a senior official of the government.
“The chief minister has clearly directed that all facilities should be provided to the migrant labourers so that they also cooperate in respecting the mandatory quarantine for their own good and for the safety of others,” the official cited above said.
“He has said that with Covid-19, there was no room for any complacency at any level and the people should also be made aware of the seriousness without creating any scare so that they come forward to cooperate with testing and screening,” the official added.
In rural Bihar, the number of households reporting out-migration per 1000 households reporting outmigration was 745 – much higher than the all-India average of 365.
In the urban area, it was 614 against the national average of 240, says a study by Tata Institute of Social Sciences’ (TISS) Patna centre.
