Registration, Covid test, mass quarantine — how Assam’s Dhubri coped with big migrant influx

After lockdown was enforced, Assam's Dhubri district administration set up makeshift testing and quarantine facilities to cope with the influx of migrants returning home.

Dhubri struggled to cope with the massive influx of returnees. Waste from the quarantine facility was strewn all around a nearby plot. Residents rued that the garbage bags contained discarded PPE kits, food items and medical equipment that has triggered a health risk. | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

Dhubri: More than 200 km away from the capital city of Guwahati, Dhubri — the last district of Lower Assam — has witnessed a massive influx of returnees in recent months, after the Narendra Modi government imposed a nationwide lockdown on 24 March to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Nearly 77,870 people, mostly migrant labourers, entered the state through two checkpoints on the Assam-West Bengal border. Approximately 52,985 people accessed the checkpoint in Srirampur while about 24,885 people came through Chagolia, according to official figures.

ThePrint’s Yimkumla Longkumer and Angana Chakrabarti visited the Assam-West Bengal border in Dhubri’s Chagolia, where huge makeshift facilities have been set up to screen and quarantine those returning to Assam.

The registration booth at the checkpoint in Chagolia where individuals returning to the state are screened. The returnees are then taken to a nearby swab collection facility | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

Empty chairs line the screening facility. The influx of returnees has gone down sharply since June. At its peak, around 1,800 migrants passed through the interstate checkpoint. | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

Migrant returnees — from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala — wait for their turn at the swab collection facility set up close to the Assam-West Bengal border | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

Health workers taking swab tests of a migrant labourer | Photo: Angana Chakrabarti | ThePrint

A mass quarantine centre has been set up just across the swab collection facility. According to protocol, the returnees coming to Assam’s Dhubri district have to stay at the centre for seven days | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

In May, the Dhubri district administration had set up about 110 quarantine centres to accommodate the large number of returnees | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

A policeman guards a quarantine facility in Chagolia | Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint

The State Fire Service Organisation in Assam routinely sanitises the screening area at the Chagolia checkpoint| Photo: Yimkumla Longkumer | ThePrint