Covid lockdown: Stopping migrants’ foot march is states’ responsibility, centre reminds

Several migrant workers have collapsed to death while undertaking the long walk home while others have dies in accidents

The central government on Friday reminded states and union territories that it was their responsibility to ensure that migrant workers were not left to walk on highways or along the railway tracks or cycle their way home when permission has been given to organize transport for their commute.

The union home secretary Ajay Bhalla wrote to the chief secretaries of states that they should follow up on Centre’s advise to counsel migrants and put them up in relief camps, if they are found walking on highways or along the railway tracks.

“However, the movement of migrant workers, walking on roads, railway tracks and travelling in trucks, is still being noticed in different parts of the country,” the home secretary’s letter says.

The letter says it is now up to the state governments to widely disseminate information about the travel arrangements being made to take migrant workers home and to persuade/counsel them not to walk home.

“With the cooperation of States/UTs, Ministry of Railways is running more than 100 Shramik Special Trains per day and is ready to arrange additional trains as per their requirements,” the letter says.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

At least 16 migrant workers were crushed to death earlier this month while they were sleeping on the railway tracks near Aurangabad in Maharashtra while walking back to their village in Madhya Pradesh. In another incident, nine workers were killed and 50 others injured when their truck collided with a bus on a highway in Guna district on Thursday.

Six migrant workers were run over by a speeding bus on the Delhi-Saharanpur highway in Uttar Pradesh early on Thursday and another three migrant workers were crushed by a vehicle in Barabanki in the small hours of Friday.

Several other tragic incidents involving migrant workers walking home have been reported in the past couple of weeks.