BENGALURU/KOLKATA: The hopes of hundreds of migrants from West Bengal of beginning their long journey back home on Monday, have been dashed.
The government in that state has delayed its response to a request from Karnataka for a written consent to run a special train from Bengaluru to Howrah.
N Manjunatha Prasad, the Nodal Officer for migrants in Karnataka has written to P B Salim, the Nodal Officer in West Bengal, on May 3 (TNIE has accessed a copy of the letter) explaining about the special train that would carry 1,200 workers hailing from West Bengal who are stranded in different districts of Karnataka and in Bengaluru.
“We request the consent of your state government so that the required transportation process can be initiated. Subsequently, all these migrant labourers will be leaving through the rake arranged by the Railways latest by tomorrow (May 4) morning.”
The letter adds, “We request your in-principle approval/consent for initiating the process and for allowing the rake to move in your state.”
Train won’t run on Monday, say officials
Prasad confirmed that no response has been received to the request. Asked about the limited time given, he added, “These are emergency trains being run and can be done only at short notice. Due to the delay in consent, we cannot run the train on Monday as planned, as it takes us at least 24 hours to book tickets for all those who have given their consent and to arrange transportation for them as well.”
A government official alleged that its seemed that West Bengal was not interested in permitting migrants back.
As per the SOPs issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the movement of stranded labourers, issued on April 29, written consent needs to be taken from both states between which the trains will operate.
“The destination state needs to take responsibility to carry out corona-related checks and quarantine those who require it. If they are not willing, then we cannot send the passengers,” a senior railway official explained. Another official added that no train can be run in this period without the crucial ‘concurrence agreement’ in writing.
However, a West Bengal official said they had not refused to accept migrants from Bengaluru.
“We started having a dialogue with other states since the last two days. The first batch of workers are scheduled to arrive in the state on Tuesday. We asked Karnataka to postpone the migrants’ journey to Bengal as we need to set up an infrastructure to receive them,” he said.