Thiruvananthapuram, May 26: Kerala Chief Minister, Shri Pinarayi Vijayan has informed the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi that railways should send trains to the State only after prior intimation and the travelling passengers should have mandatorily registered on the Covid Jagratha portal.
Briefing the media, the Chief Minister said, “Trains are coming to Kerala from all parts of the country and there are no restrictions on it. Our only condition is that there should be prior intimation from the railways. They should give us the list of passengers who have booked the tickets. In the same way, it is important and compulsory for the passengers to register on the Covid Jagratha portal before the journey. We will be prepared to receive the passengers. Those who arrive here are screened at the railway station and sent to home quarantine. But we need to have the list in advance so that we can ensure there is a proper facility for home quarantine. Any failure to do so would undermine the measures taken by the government to ensure proper monitoring and thereby prevent the spread of the disease.”
The CM mentioned about the incident when the railways sent a train from Mumbai to Kerala without prior information. Despite the Railway Minister being informed of this, railways decided to send another train in the same way. Therefore, the matter was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister. “The government is of the view that people from all areas should come back to the State but at the same time, strict rules must be adopted to prevent the spread of the disease. Registration is unavoidable. There is no other way or else things would go out of control and start community spread.”|, he added.
About 3.80 lakh people have registered to come to Kerala from other states. Of these, 2.16 lakh passes have been issued and 1,01,779 people have already reached back. 1.34 lakh have registered to come back from abroad and out of this, 11,189 have reached the state till May 25. Certain arrangements are necessary to be made in the state when pravasies reach here. People are coming from areas where the spread of the disease is huge. Naturally, the number of patients here will increase. So far 72 cases have been reported among those who came back from Maharashtra, 71 from Tamil Nadu and 35 from Karnataka. “We need to receive them with care and no one will be excluded”, the CM said.
Minister of Health & Social Justice, Smt K K Shailaja Teacher; Revenue Minister, Shri E Chandrasekharan, and Chief Secretary, Shri Tom Jose IAS were also present during the media briefing.