More Special Trains to Ferry Migrants; Virus Hits Delhi’s Labour Colony, 41 Cases from One Building

Three “shramik” special trains, carrying 1,200 migrant workers each, will leave for Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Gujarat’s Ahmedabad and Surat stations on Saturday night, news agency PTI quoted a senior official as saying.

While two trains will leave from Ahmedabad to Agra, another will depart from Surat to Behrampur in Odisha, said Ashwani Kumar, Secretary to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

In other news, the first special train to Bihar, carrying 1,187 stranded migrant labourers, reached the Danapur railway station from Jaipur on Saturday afternoon after a 16-hour journey. A medical screening of the passengers was carried out on arrival at the station by 20 medical teams.

This was the first run of a special train to Bihar after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) allowed the states to ferry migrants back home on Friday.

Many states, including Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Telangana, had requested for special trains to ferry migrant workers back home, citing logistical problems in transporting them by road.

Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus, that has infected more than 37,000 people in the country so far, hit a colony of labourers in the national capital, raising concerns of a huge spike in the number of cases among authorities.

Forty one people residing in a building in South-West Delhi’s Kapashera area tested positive for the virus on Saturday, according to an official who spoke to PTI.  A case of COVID-19 had been reported from the building, located in Theke Wali Gali, on April 18, the official added.

“Keeping in mind the high density of population in this particular building, the district administration took the proactive decision of sealing and containing the building on April 19,” the official reportedly said.

As of 5 p.m. on Saturday evening, the cumulative figure of those affected by the novel coronavirus in the country reached 37,776, of which 26,535 are under “active” medical supervision and 10,017 have been cured. The death toll due to COVID-19 has risen to 1,223.

With inputs from PTI