Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday suggested to PM Narendra Modi that the Centre come out with a “pan-India standard operating procedure” for evacuation of migrants and other stranded people, echoing the views of his counterparts in several states grappling with the challenge of organising transport, border transit control and quarantine for potentially lakhs of returnees.Bihar’s Nitish Kumar told Modi that his government wouldn’t bring back even students stuck in Rajasthan’s Kota until the Centre has framed clear-cut evacuation guidelines for all states to follow. A glimpse of what many states might have to handle over the next few days and weeks came when a migrant helpline set up by Rajasthan received 28,000-odd calls within eight hours of the number going live.“It’s been just a day and we are yet to set up a dashboard. In the coming days, we will able to receive more calls to assist migrant workers,” a senior official of the Rajasthan government said in Jaipur.There were snaking queues of people and vehicles along Himachal Pradesh’s inter-state borders after the state government’s decision to allow people from the state stranded in Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana to return home. The police and civil administration had a hard time managing the rush in the absence of a coordinated effort involving all the states.Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee tweeted that her government would take whatever steps possible to help people stuck in 18 states. The state has launched a scheme called “Sneher Parash”, under which Rs 1,000 will be transferred to every migrant stuck insome other state.In a letter to the PM on Sunday, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren asked the Centre to specify why several states were being allowed to ferry back people through the borders before a national protocol is in place. “Why is the Union government silent on the issue?” he said. Haryana, too, has no plan to send buses immediately to bring back stranded people. “We are adhering to the guidelines laid down by the MHA and there will be no evacuation till May 3,” state home minister Anil Vij said.