Hemant Soren, who turns 45 on August 10, is Jharkhand’s young Chief Minister facing the twin crises of lakhs of returning migrants and COVID-19 In an exclusive interview to The Hindu, Mr. Soren said the Centre ought to have spoken with State governments prior to enabling the Home Ministry to run trains without previous plans with States. The Centre’s choices had actually led to a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in States, he declared. Excerpts:
Taking On COVID-19 is a big difficulty for States. Can you inform us about the challenges that Jharkhand is facing?
The entire country is facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We have actually just begun dealing with the difficulties COVID-19 postures. With the variety of returning migrant workers increasing, the obstacle is going to get tougher for us. As of now, only 450 COVID-19- positive cases have been found in Jharkhand. Of them, four have actually died. The case death rate has actually been small.
So far, Jharkhand has actually conducted just 53,000 tests. Is this the reason that the number of favorable cases in your State stays low?
Never. If you check Bihar’s circumstance, you will discover that we remain in a much better position. They need to have performed a lot more tests by now. Those who had actually been infected prior to the arrival of migrant employees have actually practically all recovered in Jharkhand. Now, a bulk of infections are being identified among returnees. That’s why we are providing top priority to testing migrant employees.
We have only four functional [COVID-19 testing] labs. We have actually made little changes by deploying extra testing devices. With every passing day, we are learning something. Previously, the scenario was much worse– we were getting our samples checked in Kolkata. Now, things have improved. Checking capacity has actually been augmented in the State.
The obstacle being dealt with by migrant workers has ended up being harder. The number of migrant labourers from Jharkhand are stranded outdoors and the number of them want to return home?
About 4.5 lakh migrant labourers have come over buses, trains and some by their own plans. More than eight lakh migrant labourers from our State are stranded outside. We desire all our employees stuck outside to be sent back to Jharkhand with safety and dignity. I was the very first Chief Minister to advocate that migrants deserved to return. Currently, 166 trains carrying migrant employees have a