BENGALURU: A coalition of organisations and volunteers who have joined hands to help migrants during the lockdown, have stressed that contrary to the version given by the state government, many migrants are still desperate to return to their hometowns. An open letter released by ‘Bangalore With Migrants’ states that a Supreme Court order on June 5 this year has given 15 days to all states to help migrants travel back home.
“Just a few days to go, not even 50 per cent of those registered on the Seva Sindhu portal had left for their hometowns, as per the government’s own records. This points to huge gaps between government intent, as manifested in their Writ Petition to the Supreme Court and various government circulars, and the actual implementation on the ground,” it said in its letter.
However, a senior official told TNIE that many who had registered on the portal were not inclined to leave for their homes anymore. “When our staff contacted them so that they could go back, they did not not show interest,” he said. The absence of enough patronage on trains was the reason that it had to ask railways to cancel some Shramik Specials, the official added. Another official said that though some migrants in West Bengal and Odisha wanted to leave, their respective governments were showing a lack of interest.
MODIFY MIGRANT WORKERS’ TRAVEL POLICY: HC TO STATE The Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed the state government to modify some aspects of its policy on facilitating the travel of migrant workers back to their home states. Going through the policy, which the State government submitted on Thursday, a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice BV Nagarathna directed the state to inform workers that they must mandatorily reach mustering centres where their accommodation and meals would be taken care of until trains have been arranged. When AICCTU counsel Clifton Rozario submitted that around 200 migrants from Manipur and Nagaland are stranded in Bengaluru, the court asked the counsel to provide the details to the government so that travel arrangements could be made.