Delhi asks Bihar to reimburse Rs 6.5 lakh for migrants’ travel

The railways last week began running special trains for the people stranded because of the lockdown. As per the Centre’s guidelines, either a state where a special train originates from or the one where it terminates has to bear 15% cost of a ticket.

A Delhi government letter seeking reimbursement of Rs 6.5 lakh spent on sending around 1,100 migrants from the national capital to their native Bihar on a special train on Friday has triggered a row.

People seen sitting on tracks without any social distance during lockdown at Azadpur in New Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

In a letter in response to the demand, Bihar’s disaster management department principal secretary Pratyaya Amrit on Saturday cited clause 11 (c) of the railways guidelines issued on May 2 saying the “local state government authority shall handover the tickets to the passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and handover the total amount to railways”. “The decision of the GNCTD [government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi] in making payments for buying bulk tickets for all passengers and then to seek reimbursement from Government of Bihar (GoB) is in violation of the aforesaid guidelines issued by the Ministry of Railways,” said Amrit.

Amrit’s letter came in response to that of Delhi government’s nodal officer PK Gupta seeking the reimbursement for the transportation of the migrants, who arrived in Muzaffarpur on Saturday.

He said the Bihar government has a policy of reimbursing the railway fares paid by migrant labourers on arrival in the state. “In consonance with this policy, we shall reimburse the fare to the railway passengers and not to the GNCTD,” the letter said. HT has seen copies of both letters.

Gopal Rai, Delhi’s labour minister, acknowledged they had written to the Bihar government on May 7 seeking the reimbursement. He added since there was no response to their letter, the Delhi government paid the railways Rs 6.5 lakh to send the migrant workers back home. “We had sent a similar letter to Madhya Pradesh and it responded and paid the cost for the first train that went from Delhi.”

Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party spokesman Sanjay Singh said the railways runs these special trains after the fares are paid but the Bihar government wants workers to come first and pay later. He said the Delhi government said it will not allow the workers to pay money and hence paid the railways. “Who are you trying to fool [Bihar chief minister] Nitish Kumar and BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]?” Singh tweeted.

Tens of thousands of migrant workers from states like Bihar have been stranded in Delhi since the lockdown to check the Covid-19 spread was imposed on March 25.

The railways last week began running special trains for the people stranded because of the lockdown. As per the Centre’s guidelines, either a state where a special train originates from or the one where it terminates has to bear 15% cost of a ticket. The Centre will take care of the remaining 85% of the sleeper class rates.