  Nationwide lockdown for COVID-19 created an urgent demand for public
transportation among migrant workers stranded at different parts of India to
return to their native places. Arranging transportation could spike the number
of COVID-19 infected cases. Hence, this paper investigates the potential surge
in confirmed and active cases of COVID-19 infection and assesses the train and
bus fleet size required for the repatriating migrant workers. The expected to
repatriate migrant worker population was obtained by forecasting the 2011
census data and comparing it with the information reported in the news media. A
modified susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model was proposed to
estimate the surge in confirmed and active cases of COVID-19 patients in
India's selected states with high outflux of migrants. The developed model
considered combinations of different levels of the daily arrival rate of
migrant workers, total migrant workers in need of transportation, and the
origin of the trip dependent symptomatic cases on arrival. Reducing the daily
arrival rate of migrant workers for states with very high outflux of migrants
(i.e., Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) can help to lower the surge in confirmed and
active cases. Nevertheless, it could create a disparity in the number of days
needed to transport all repatriating migrant workers to the home states. Hence,
travel arrangements for about 100,000 migrant workers per day to Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar, about 50,000 per day to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, 20,000 per day
to Maharashtra and less than 20,000 per day to other states of India was
recommended.
