At least 16 migrant workers were killed after coming under a goods train in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district on Friday. A police official told all 16 killed were returning to Madhya Pradesh and had slept on railway tracks.
Migrant labourers who were protesting in Kerala's Ernakulam that they be sent back to their native places were lathicharged by cops on Thursday.
Nearly 70,000 stranded migrants have been ferried to various parts of the country in 'Shramik Special' trains since May 1 at the estimated expense of over Rs 50 crore, railway officials said on Tuesday even as the issue of their travel cost remained a matter of political bickering with the Congress and BSP leaders attacking the railways for charging money from these migrants.
In a major relief for migrant workers stranded in different parts of Telangana, the state government has said 40 special trains would be deployed per day for one week beginning Tuesday to ferry them to their native places in states, including Bihar and West Bengal.
Migrant workers blocked national highway near Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) in Bengaluru on May 04.
Despite special trains ferrying migrant labourers to their native places, many of them have been unhappy over delay in their travel.
Amidst criticism over the railways charging stranded migrant workers for ferrying them home, payments for 45 special trains that have run so far have been made by originating states, barring Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka, sources said on Monday.
The government has not talked about charging anything from migrant labourers as 85 per cent of the transportation cost is borne by the railways and 15 per cent by state governments, the Centre said on Monday.
From Riteish Deshmukh, Sonu Sood to Javed Akhtar, Bollywood celebrities tweeted and urged the governments to bear the cost of migrant workers' train trip back to their home towns.
Bihar state government will bear the train fare of returning students and also reimburse migrant workers on completing their quarantine, as all are returning to their native states amid coronavirus lockdown extention in the country. The announcement has been made by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Health Minister of Chhattisgarh, TS Singh Deo, on May 03 informed that out of all the migrant workers who have returned from different states, 14 have so far tested positive in Chhattisgarh.
The 02121 Shramik Special carried over 800 others from Maharashtra's Nashik, all stranded there for weeks after a lockdown to fight coronavirus was imposed nationwide.
The railways on Saturday ran 10 trains to ferry home to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar nearly 10,000 migrants from eight states, a senior official said.
Defying curbs and norms like physical distancing, migrant workers on Saturday staged a flash protest here, demanding that the authorities send them to their home states like Jharkhand immediately, an official said.
In another incident of migrant labourers making desperate attempts to reach their homes amid the nationwide lockdown, the police in Madhya Pradesh's Indore on Saturday came across 18 workers travelling while hiding inside a cement concrete mixer.
The machine mounted on a truck was travelling from Maharashtra to Lucknow, said the police.
With the Centre giving nod for movement of migrant workers and others stranded during lockdown, as many as 14 checkposts have been set up in this northern district in Tamil Nadu to screen people who might return home from neighbouring states
Amid nationwide lockdown, over 2000 migrant workers staged protest at IIT Hyderabad demanding to send them back to their states. They also pelted stones on police team deployed there in which one cop received minor injuries and the police vehicle was also damaged.
Thousands of migrant workers engaged in the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad construction work, staged a protest on Wednesday at Kandi in Sangareddy district.
The Yogi Adityanath government has asked authorities to formulate a roadmap to bring back migrant workers stranded in other states due to the coronavirus lockdown who have completed the 14-day quarantine period. He said this should be done in a phased-wise manner.
The Uttar Pradesh government will allow other states to take their stranded residents home if they wished, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Wednesday.
Top News
Latest News
