Illegal entry of migrants raises concern

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, July 12

The Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt is witnessing a rise in the number of people being quarantined on a daily basis.

The unauthorised entry of migrants and increasing number of industrial workers, who are the contacts of already infected persons, have become a major cause for concern. There are 37 quarantine centres in the industrial belt, which can accommodate 1,250 persons only.

As many as 120 workers from Sara Textiles, who are among 700 primary contacts of 32 Covid-19 cases, were shifted to four centres today.

Besides, 18 migrants and four Ghaziabad youth have also been sent to such centres since

last evening.

SDM, Nalagarh, Prashant Deshta said there were hundreds of contacts of 32 Covid patients from Sara Textiles. Among them, 120 have been shifted to quarantine centres by the administration. While 90 men had been shifted to the boys’ hostel at Government College, Nalagarh, 30 women have been kept at the girls’ hostel of the same college. The remaining have been shifted to schools at Rajpura and at Chowkiwala. He said foreign travellers and those coming from Covid-19 hotspots were being quarantined.

Given the increasing number of people under quarantine in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh belt, teachers have also been deployed at the centres.

Though the government had directed officials not to use educational institutes as quarantine centres, the authorities here had no other option.

Meanwhile, two labour contractors have been booked for unauthorised ingress of nearly 27 labourers in the last two days. Besides this, 30 to 40 migrants have reportedly entered the BBN through escape routes.

With 47 positive cases in the BBN in the last four days, the authorities face a challenge to quarantine a number of vulnerable people at these centres.