The Bengal government has decided to allow labourers who had left home to work elsewhere in the state but were stuck because of the lockdown to return home with a condition that they would have to be in quarantine at the houses for two weeks.

“We have decided to allow migratory labourers within the state to go back home. The process has already started. When they will be allowed to return, they would have to go for home quarantine for few days. The families of the labourers will be under the health department’s monitoring,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said during a video conference with district authorities from Nabanna on Friday.

The move assumes significance as Bengal could be the first state to think of a mechanism for labourers to return home during the lockdown.

Sources said thousands of labourers, mainly agriculture workers, had left their homes in mid-February for potato and mustard harvesting elsewhere in Bengal.

“But they could not go back home following the announcement of the lockdown in the last week of March. They are in a real trouble as they don’t have shelter and enough cash in hand. So, the state government has decided to send them back their homes,” said a senior government official.

According to the plan, police would arrange vehicles to take the labourers back home under strict surveillance. Once, they reach their home district, they would go through a health screening.

“If anyone is required to be taken to government quarantine centres, he or she would be shifted there immediately. Others would have to go for mandatory home quarantine for two weeks,” said an official.

Meanwhile, the Mamata government announced a new scheme — Sneher Parash — to give Rs 1,000 each to the migrant workers from Bengal who are stuck outside the state because of the lockdown.

“The money will be transferred electronically... It can be sent to the bank accounts of the individuals or through paytm,” chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said.

Sources said many migrant workers had contacted the government over the past few days and the state had prepared a database of at least 30,000 such people.

“Details of the workers would be sent to the district magistrates concerned for the verification of their addresses and funds could be sent from Monday onwards,” said a source.

SARI patients

Chief secretary Sinha asked the district magistrates of Malda and Murshidabad to find out all people with serious acute respiratory illness and take them to hospitals set up for such patients in the backdrop of the spread of Covid-19.

“The districts (Malda and Murshidabad) have a large number of SARI patients. It has been found that majority of people afflicted by Covid-19 are SARI patients. So, you have to find out them and take them to SARI hospitals as a precautionary measure,” said Sinha.

Malda is among the 10 districts without any Covid-19 case in the state. Murshidabad has reported just case.

Sources said the precautionary measure was required considering that the disease could spread rapidly if the SARI patients were not taken to safe places.

The chief secretary asked the district magistrates to conduct door-to-door survey to find out all SARI patients.