A special train ferrying more than 1000 stranded people of Manipur arrived at its lone railway station on Wednesday noon.
It may be recalled that the special train arranged by the state authority in consultation with the central government and Indian Railways began its non-stop journey with 1140 passengers from Chennai on Sunday night.
Manipur’s chief secretary Dr J Suresh Babu led high level officials of the State welcomed the returnees on their arrival at Jiribam Railway station which is located about 220 km west of Imphal.
As per state’s standard operating procedure following state cabinet decision, all the returnees will be housed at institutional or community quarantine centres.
Chief Secretary said on Thursday one more train is coming from Punjab and it will take two days to reach Jiribam.
After that another train will start from Bengaluru.
The government is trying to work on one more train from Chennai and one more from Vadodara, he said.
The chief secretary was accompanied by additional DGP (Law & order) L Kailun, water resources secretary Jacintha Lazarus, deputy commissioner Jiribam W Malemnganba Chenglei, Director (Transport), Mercina Panmei during the monitoring visit at Jiribam.
After the necessary medical formalities, the returnees were allowed to proceed towards their respective districts depending on the distance to be covered by government arranged buses.
Meanwhile the state Health department has issued various standard operating procedures for quarantining of returning stranded persons.
It may be mentioned that two COVID-19 cases were reported in the state in March and April this year.
But both the cases recovered after treatment at JNIMS and RIMS hospitals and later both of them were discharged from the hospitals on April 12 and 21 respectively.