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Updated: May 11, 2020 12:04:04 pm
The Maharashtra government has decided not to be harsh on thousands of migrant workers who want to return home on foot and let them go for humanitarian reasons, the state’s interior minister Anil Deshmukh said. (File photo)
The Maharashtra government has decided to allow thousands of migrant workers who wish to return home on foot for humanitarian reasons despite violating the closure rules, state Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh told the PTI news agency.
Deshmukh said the workers’ sufferings would have been much less if the train services had started earlier, as required by the state government. “It is true that migrant workers who walk back to their cities of origin hundreds of kilometers away are violating the closure rules, but we are letting them go for humanitarian reasons,” he said.
Last month, hundreds of migrant workers had gathered at the Bandra station, demanding that transportation arrangements be made for them to return to their places of origin. The police carried workers with batons to disperse them.
Claiming that the extension of the confinement “pushed migrant workers to the limit,” Deshmukh said: “They are so desperate to go home that they are ready to face the wrath of law enforcement agencies.” Therefore, we decided not to be hard on them. My minister is not alone, but the government as a whole is trying to help them. “
The minister said there was a communication gap (between the state government and workers) that could have been corrected earlier.
“We never thought that the blockade would go on for so long. We try to talk to migrant workers. Prime Minister Uddhav Thackeray also made several appeals, but migrant workers decided to return home, he said.
Deshmukh said the government tried to convince migrant workers not to leave the state by telling them that some industries have resumed and that there will be more relaxation in the coming days.
“During my visit to the temporary shelters, a group of workers told me that they could return after Diwali, but now they want to go home,” he said.
Deshmukh said migrants are at great risk by walking to their places of origin, as they have neither the money nor the resources to complete the journey.
He added that the state government assumed the cost of transportation for around 10,000 workers belonging to Madhya Pradesh who were in Telangana. “The Telangana government dropped them off at the Maharashtra border. Our government provided them with shelter and food and then left them at the Madhya Pradesh border. The Maharashtra government did not charge anything for it, ”he said.
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