{"id":24847,"date":"2020-05-04T15:19:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T09:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/congress-will-pay-for-rail-travel-of-migrant-workers\/"},"modified":"2020-05-04T15:19:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T09:49:19","slug":"congress-will-pay-for-rail-travel-of-migrant-workers-inc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=24847","title":{"rendered":"Congress will pay for rail travel of migrant workers, says Sonia Gandhi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is particularly disturbing is that the Central government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis, the party president says in a statement<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PTI<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State units of the Congress or the Pradesh Congress Committees (PCC) will bear the cost of rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labour, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She called it \u2018disturbing\u2019 that the Railways and the Union government were charging the migrants even for distress travel when it could spend nearly \u20b9100 crores on a public programme in Gujarat, a veiled attack on the Namaste Trump programme to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is particularly disturbing is that the Central government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis,\u201d Ms. Gandhi said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Indian National Congress has, therefore, taken a decision that every Pradesh Congress Committee shall bear the cost for the rail travel of every needy worker and migrant labourer and shall take necessary steps in this regard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questioning the responsibility of the Union government, the Congress chief said there were lakhs of migrant workers who were \u2018languishing\u2019 in different parts of the country with neither food nor money to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPost the Partition of 1947, this is the first time India witnessed a tragedy with such a massive human cost as thousands of migrant workers and labourers were forced to walk home several hundred kilometres on foot \u2014 without food, without medicines, without money, without transportation, without anything except for the desire to return to their families and loved ones. The very thought of their plight is enough to break our hearts as there was also the outpouring of support from fellow Indians for their inspiring resolve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ambassadors of nation\u2019s growth\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur workers and labourers are the ambassadors of our nation\u2019s growth. When our government can recognise its responsibility by arranging free air travel for our citizens stranded abroad, when the government can spend nearly \u20b9100 crores on transport and food etc. for just one public programme in Gujarat, when the Rail Ministry has the largesse to donate \u20b9151 crores to the PM\u2019s Corona fund, then why can\u2019t these essential members of our nation\u2019s fabric be given a fraction of the same courtesy, especially free rail travel, at this hour of acute distress,\u201d asked Ms. Gandhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congress chief stated that by making a \u201chumble contribution\u201d the Congress would stand \u201cshoulder to shoulder in solidarity with the workers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cong. releases Railways guidelines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As soon as Central government \u2018sources\u2019 stated that the Centre would fund 85% of the rail travel cost of migrant workers, the Congress on Monday released a copy of the Indian Railways guidelines where it was clearly mentioned that the fare had to be collected from the passenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government\u2019s damage control came soon after Ms. Gandhi issued a public statement that her party would pay for the rail fares of the migrant workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing an online press conference, party general secretary K.C. Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala said the government\u2019s move was an afterthought and asserted that the party had already paid \u20b91 crore to the BJP government in Karnataka to facilitate smooth travel of migrant labour and workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe local State government authority shall hand over the tickets to passengers cleared by them and collect the ticket fare and hand over the total amount to Railways,\u201d Mr. Venugopal read out from order signed by a senior official of the Railway Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congress general secretary said that all the State party units or Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) had been informed to get in touch with the Chief Secretaries of the State government to make the offer of payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PM CARES Fund<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody should stand on false prestige, and we call upon Prime Minister Narendra Modiji to utilise thousands and thousands of crores lying in the PM CARES Fund,\u201d Mr. Surjewala said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former party chief Rahul Gandhi too made a similar point on twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the one hand, the Railways is charging fares from migrant workers stranded in other States while, on the other hand, it is donating \u20b9150 crores to the PM CARES Fund. Just solve the riddle,\u201d Mr. Gandhi tweeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling the party president\u2019s decision to direct PCCs to bear the cost of rail transport for migrant workers historic, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the move \u201cputs the Government of India to shame\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior party leader Ahmed Patel asked why the issue of migrant workers had not got the attention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) it deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe near silence of the NHRC is surprising. Two major human rights abuses have occurred during this pandemic & we are yet to hear from this constitutional body.1) Forced exodus of poor migrants on foot. 2) Stigmatisation of a community contrary to WHO guidelines,\u201d Mr. Patel tweeted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is particularly disturbing is that the Central government and the Rail Ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis, the party president says in a statement PTI The State units of the Congress or the Pradesh Congress Committees (PCC) will bear the cost of rail travel of every needy worker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}