First train from Uttarakhand carrying migrant workers of Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda will reach at Krishnagar station on 18 May

“We have come here to make arrangement for the reception of the migrant workers who are the residents of our district. As per chief minister’s wishes, we are ready to make a smooth reception of the migrants and we have also made arrangement for sending them at their areas”. Mr Vibhu Goel said.

Biswabrata Goswami

KRISHNAGAR, 16 MAY: As the trains carrying migrant workers from different states for Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda will reach at Krishnagar station on different dates starting from 18 May, a team of Nadia administrative officials and police, today, paid their visit at the station to do advance arrangement for the reception of the migrant workers.

The team headed by the district magistrate Vibhu Goel reached at around 4.30 pm and talked with the railway officials and others.

“We have come here to make arrangement for the reception of the migrant workers who are the residents of our district. As per chief minister’s wishes, we are ready to make a smooth reception of the migrants and we have also made arrangement for sending them at their areas”. Mr Goel said.

According to officials, the first train from Uttarakhand will reach at Krishnagar station on 18 May. The next three consecutive trains from Kerala will reach on 20 May, 25 May and 1 June.

These trains will carry migrant workers of Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda.

The railways has ensured all possible precautions for Covid-19, like disinfection of platforms and bogies, detailed briefing of the migrants, instructions pasted outside and inside the bogies, establishment of sanitisation tunnel and following social distancing norms and screening of passengers.

The station will be barricaded from outside as all the coaches of a train will not get the platform. The Krishnagar railway platform is not so long to provide all 20 coaches at a time. So, some coaches will stand outside the platform, a railway police official said.

A media center will also erect near the railway station so that journalists and photographers can do their jobs with maintaining all precautions for Covid-19.

To maintain security, 700 police persons will be deployed at the Krishnagar station. This apart 60 buses have been arranged to carry the migrant workers at their native areas from the railway station.

Meanwhile, the first trains carrying migrant workers to Bihar and West Bengal, which had so far disallowed labourers to come back, departed on Saturday from Maharashtra after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and NCP president Sharad Pawar spoke to respective CMs, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said her government has made arrangements for 105 more trains to bring back people stuck in different parts of the country, amid claims by opposition that the state is not taking adequate measures to ferry them home.

Earlier, the government had given nod for 10 trains to facilitate the return of labourers, patients, tourists and students stranded in other states owing to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.