DN&V Correspondent
New Delhi, May 01: The Union home ministry has allowed the inter-state movement of migrant workers and other people, like students and tourists, stranded for the past five weeks due to the nationwide lockdown. Besides stiffening the task of dealing with the pandemic, the return of lakhs of workers will be a logistical challenge.
The bill: The prime concern among states is who will incur the cost of transporting the migrants back to their home states as the sheer numbers indicate it will be a burden on the state exchequer.
Home states? The Maharashtra government wants the governments of the states concerned to bear the cost of transporting their migrants back home. The state has sent 70 buses to Kota in Rajasthan to bring back students. Host states have borne the cost of keeping and feeding the workers who were stuck because of the suspension of transport, despite having no jobs or income and against their wishes.
Both states? Rajasthan on Thursday transported over 25,000 people to the state’s borders with Madhya Pradesh and another 2,000 to the Haryana border. It’s doing the same with people who want to go back to Gujarat. The respective states are likely to take over from the border.
Centre? States like Bihar and some southern states have asked the Centre to make trains available to bring migrants back home given the long distance (imagine a bus journey from Kerala to Bihar) and the difficult logistics of bus travel. The Centre has only allowed people to go by road.
Any answers? The Tamil Nadu government is expecting “clear-cut” guidelines on the logistics from the Centre so that it can start the process of sending the workers back home.
