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MAHARASHTRA Govt shelters outstation labourers & quarantines them as a precautionary measure against Coronavirus spread

Maharashtra Government has set up 262 relief camps across the state to help the migrant workers who remained unemployed due to ban on construction and other non-essential services during the lockdown. The workers have been lodged at relief camps, marriage halls and schools across the state. “Our doctors examine them at least once a day and a distance of at least five feet is maintained between two migrants. It is a difficult task but we have no option. At certain camps, we did face a law-and-order problem, since a large group was insisting on leaving,’’ TOI reports citing a   bureaucrat .Earlier, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the workers will be provided with food and shelter at these relief camps. Hundreds of migrant workers from other states have decided to return to their native states due to lack of employment in the wake of nationwide lockdown to tackle COVID-19.  Thackeray appealed to the migrant labourers not to leave the state and assured to provide them all assistance. CM said  “Maharashtra government has set up 262 relief camps across the state which is presently providing shelters to 70,399 migrant labour or the homeless people to ensure that they have food, and a roof during this crisis’’  as slum-dwellers, housemaids and construction workers with kids had gathered at the office Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation on receipt of information about free food distribution. Police had to disperse the crowd as it kept growing in large numbers. The KDMC officials assured them that food would be distributed at their respective residences in each area. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs headed by Amit Shah has directed starts and Union Territories to ensure free arrangement of food and shelter for the outstation workers. Alarmed by a spurt in Covid-19 cases, the state government on Monday quarantined all 1.8 lakh migrant workers and labourers across the state till April 14.A senior bureaucrat told TOI that following the 21-day nationwide lockdown declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, all the districts were sealed and a ban imposed on movement of migrant workers. Directives were issued to all district collectors to ensure that migrant workers and labourers do not move out of their respective districts and that relief camps be set up for them where food must be provided. It has been decided to quarantine them,” he said. The measures are in keeping with norms prescribed by the World Health Organisation, the bureaucrat is cited as saying by TOI.The workers have been lodged at relief camps, marriage halls and schools across the state. “Our doctors examine them at least once a day and a distance of at least five feet is maintained between two migrants. It is a difficult task but we have no option. At certain camps, we did face a law-and-order problem, since a large group was insisting on leaving,’’ he said.

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