COVID-19: Bihar protests return of people from Rajasthan's Kota

The Bihar government has lodged a protest with the Centre over the Rajasthan's Kota administration issuing passes to students of various coaching centres and their parents in the COVID-19 hotspot town in the northwestern state for their return to the home state. A large number of medical and engineering aspirants from Bihar join various coaching institutes in Kota every year.

The students' parents and guardians too often accompany them and stay there till satisfactory arrangements are made for their boarding and lodging. The nationwide lockdown has left the coaching institutes and those joining them in a quandary. In a letter to Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Bihar Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar on Monday said,

"Such movement from Kota is not at all advisable in the present scenario. In Bihar, we are now medically examining the returning students as well as their guardians accompanying them, and instructions are being issued to quarantine them."

"This unprecedented situation could have been easily avoided by strict enforcement of the lockdown in Kota," said the Bihar chief secretary, pointing out that "earlier we had to tackle the unprecedented influx of migrant workers because of the poor implementation (of the lockdown) by other states".

The chief secretary's remark was an obvious reference to the large-scale exodus from the Delhi-NCR region in the last week of March when migrant workers reached the UP border in droves, allegedly at the instance of the Aam Aadmi Party that rules Delhi, and were ferried to their home state on buses plied by the Yogi Adityanath government for the purpose.

The chief secretary pointed out that "Kota has 40 confirmed corona cases" and requested the Union home secretary "to issue necessary instructions for strict enforcement of the lockdown. The Kota district magistrate too should be warned for violating the MHA guidelines against the movement of people in the country".