Centre not communicating with states: Here is an example with the railways.

On 25th March the railways had suspended all passenger train services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the night of 10th May, they made a sudden announcement: There would be special A/C trains shuttling between Delhi and 15 state capitals.

The announcement came as a surprise to the general public. But the suddenness was not limited to human beings. Because of the overload, the IRCTC website crashed for a little while. But these were minor problems.

State governments responsibilities:

A major part of combating COVID-19, is to contain the virus. A major part of the responsibilities in containing lie on the State Government. Central Government just needs to issue guidelines. The state governments needs to do contact tracing, setting up containment zones and quarantine centres etc.

Overall, the state governments are the ones who need to tackle the virus at the ground level. And yet, there was no consensus from the states when the centre announced the special trains.

Chief Minister’s requests:

During the Prime Minister’s video conference with the Chief Ministers, many of them asked the Prime Minister not to send trains to their states. It turns out that the Centre didn’t even inform the states officially.

We know from Press that regular train service to Chennai and from Chennai will commence from 12th May. As the positive cases in Chennai are showing an increasing trend, don’t permit train service up to 31.5.2020, in my State.

—Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami, during the video conference.

However, Narendra Modi did not reply to even one of the Chief Minister’s requests.

Train Services not cancelled:

Earlier, the railways had opened booking for 14th April, the day Lockdown 1.0 ended. Then after Narendra Modi made a speech on the 14th April extending the lockdown, they cancelled all the trains and refunded the money. That was how they had respected the Prime Minister.

But now, when Chief Ministers asked them not to send the trains, they said that they had already opened the booking so it was impossible to cancel.

Edappadi Palaniswami then wrote a letter to the Home Minister and Railway Minister. He asked them to keep the passengers in the station until they can be tested. Pointing out the risks of operating A/C trains, he wrote:

I hope you will appreciate the risk of operating an air-conditioned train service...[E]ven if one person carries coronavirus, it will endanger all other passengers.”

Replying to Palaniswami, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said, 

Railways infrastructure is developed for transportation of people and we cannot carry out quarantine and other action suggested by you.”

Similar things happened in other states.It turns out that there was a lack of communication in Karnataka as well. Even though both the central government and the state government es ruled by the same political party (BJP).

The central government had made its own conditions for the passengers after deboarding , whereas each state had its own conditions. The states conditions were not given even for the passengers travelling to Bengaluru. Only after reaching their destination did they get to know about the state’s conditions. Many protested that they were not informed and said that wouldn’t have come had they known the conditions. The railways ended up attaching an extra carriage on the return journey. This carriage carried 19 passengers who preferred to go back rather than follow the states conditions.

Such is the way the centre is relating to the states when it comes to railways. With the railways, the public is more involved so what is happening can be known more easily. Just imagine what might be going on in other departments. In deciding details of how to tackle COVID-19, there may be lot of precious time wasted in this communication gap.