Shelter, food and water to be provided by originating State at notified places
The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that stranded migrant workers will not be charged train or bus fares for their journey back home to their villages.
The fare would be pooled between the State from where their journey originated and the destination State. Shelter, food and water would be provided by the originating State at notified places to workers waiting for their transport home.
During train journey, railways would be in charge of providing them nourishment. Similarly, States through which they passed by buses would take care of their food and water.
Those found walking should be escorted to the nearest camps where they should be looked after.
When Solicitor General Tushar Mehta wondered aloud whether this would encourage more people to walk, the court said dryly that they were already walking home. Many had decided to walk because they got no word from officials even after registering for a transport back to their villages.
The court ordered the States to set up help kiosks.
‘Give numbers’
Besides these interim directions, the court also sought details from the government on the number of stranded workers, plans for their registration and transportation. A hearing has been scheduled for June 5.
A nearly three-hour hearing through video-conferencing witnessed the court question the government about its “lapses” in providing adequate food, shelter and transportation to thousands of migrant workers.
The Centre maintained that workers were “locally instigated” to walk home. Mr. Mehta said the government machinery from the safai karmachari to the Prime Minister were selflessly battling an “unprecedented crisis”. He blamed the “prophets of doom” and “armchair intellectuals” for stirring trouble and weakening the resolve. He questioned their patriotism. He said the court should not be allowed to be made into a political platform.
But the Bench restricted itself to asking the government basic and factual questions like who paid for the workers’ journey home; who took care that they do not starve during journey; was somebody monitoring the process; and how many more days would be needed to take them all back to their homes.
‘Uniform policy needed’
The court asked why certain States had turned away migrant workers from their borders. There was need for a concrete and uniform policy between the Centre and the States and among the States as regard to the migrants’ crisis.
“Look to the future. How much time do you need to transport migrants workers? What is the monitoring mechanism to ensure food and basic necessities? It is not that the government is not doing enough but concrete steps need to be taken. Hard reality is that there is need for a mechanism to tackle the crisis”, the court observed.
Mr. Mehta said approximately one crore migrant workers have been transported home. There were also many who had decided to stay back. The States would be better suited to provide more details about them.
“Some isolated incidents” were being highlighted to portray the government’s efforts in bad light. Migrant workers were stopped from going home in the initial days of the lockdown to arrest the spread of the virus. Over 3,700 special trains had carried migrants since May 1. Nearly two lakh of them were transported to their homes everyday by 187 trains. Over 45 lakh workers and their families have been shifted through road.
Appearing for Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, senior advocate A.M. Singhvi said the Centre still did not have a nationwide action plan to tally the exact number of migrant labourers stranded in various parts of the country. He said the government should work with the grass roots administrative mechanism, including the district and panchayats, to create lists accurately identifying the stranded workers.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said migrant workers left government relief camps to walk home because of lack of “minimum standards” of food, water and shelter in them as required under the Disaster Management Act. “What food was provided to them? Pulses is not the answer. Where will they cook all this?” he said.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising said only 3% of the trains were being used now and there were four crore migrant workers waiting to go home.
With inputs from The Hindu