Bhubaneswar: The Orissa High Court, here Thursday, directed the state government to conduct RT-PCR tests of migrant workers before allowing them to enter the state.
All migrants, waiting to return to Odisha, should test Covid-19 negative before departing for the state, it said while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL), filed by Narayan Chandra Jena.
The court asked the state government to do the RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests of Odia migrants in the states they were stranded, Jena said.
The state government will bear the RT-PCR test expenses.
Thousands of Odia migrants have started arriving. They are being kept in 14-day quarantine.
In his petition, Jena had argued that around 5 lakh Odia migrants who are presently staying in COVID-19 affected states have registered with the government to return to Odisha. While the rate of infection is considerably low in the state, the return of lakhs of people would deteriorate the condition here.
The petitioner’s counsel urged the court to direct the state government to not allow the Odia migrants to enter the state without undergoing tests as recently the COVID-19 positive cases in Odisha have gone up and most of them are returnees from other states.
(PNN & Agencies)
