Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Thursday cancelled three trains which were scheduled to leave Surat for Odisha on Friday with the migrant Odia workers.
The government took the decision on the direction of the Orissa High Court in this regard earlier in the day.
Briefing the media in Surat, district collector Dhaval Kumar Patel said that though the district administration had made all arrangements to send back the Odia workers, the Odisha government informed the administration not to allow the train to leave Surat on the Orissa High Court order.
The High Court in its order had directed that all the returnees to Odisha from different parts of the country must go through RT-PCR test before their departure. The court also ordered that only those testing negative should be allowed to come to the State.
Asked whether the train fair paid by the Odia workers will be refunded, Patel said that the railways will return the amount.
Notably, social activist Narayan Jena had filed a PIL praying the High Court to direct the state government to conduct the RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) test of migrant Odia workers in their state of residence.
