Trade unions demand Rs 7,500 cash support for needy household

Central trade unions have urged the Prime Minister to announce cash support of Rs 7,500 for each needy family and arrange free of cost travel for stranded workers in the lockdown.

The government imposed the lockdown on March 25 to control the spread of deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

In a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 10 trade unions said, "There is an urgent need for cash support also for the working people for their survival-related requirements... (We) have been urging for about Rs 7,500 per month to be transferred to all the needy (non-income tax paying) households for a period of three months at least".

"We urge upon you to please appropriately intervene and ensure for their (workers) return to home without charging any fares from them in trains and the public transport in roadways," they added.

These workers are already in distress and they should not be pushed into further miseries, it stated.

All the workers working in different other states or in the far off districts/locations within the state far from their villages are now exhausted financially and mentally with no cash and nothing at all in their hands wherever they are stranded, they stated in the letter.

In such a situation, to make them pay for theirrail fare to travel back to their homes is the height of insensitivity to their plight, they added.

The unions are INTUC,AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA,AICCTU, LPF and UTUC.