WB govt not providing facilities for migrants to return home: Piyush Goyal

The West Bengal government is not giving facilities for migrants to return home and has allowed only seven 'Shramik Special' trains, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday, citing that Uttar Pradesh has "cleared" 400 such trains.

The railways had started the migrant special service on May 1 after the central government gave its approval for transportation of stranded workers on trains during the novel coronavirus-induced lockdown.

In a series of tweets, Goyal said despite his appeal to the West Bengal government to give permission to allow more 'Shramik Special' trains, there has been no response from it.

"After my statement yesterday, the West Bengal government has woken up from its deep sleep. The government has yet allowed only seven trains for migrant workers... The workers of Bengal are far from their homes, so I had appealed to allow them to run more trains," Goyal said.

West Bengal just needs to run 105 trains daily, "there is unconfirmed news that for the next 30 days they have prepared a list of just 105 trains," he said.

"It is a cruel joke with the migrant workers of West Bengal that the government there is not giving them the facility to go to their houses," Goyal said.

Among the migrant heavy source states, West Bengal has approved the least number of 'Shramik Special' trains so far at seven, out of which one is still on its way.

Uttar Pradesh has accepted 386 trains, while Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have accepted 204 and 67 trains, respectively. The number stands at 44 for Jharkhand, 18 for Rajasthan and seven each for Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, the central government said on Thursday.

More such requests are being sent from states and the central government is working on them, it said.

The railway minister said, "So far, the government of West Bengal has not allowed eight trains to run, as per its announcement last week".

"This is a petty attempt to trick West Bengal's migrant workers, and the government is running away from its responsibility to take the poor labourers home," Goyal said.

"Uttar Pradesh cleared 400 trains in less than 15 days and brought its migrant workers home. Instead of showing this kind of alacrity, the West Bengal government is preventing the labourers from getting assistance," he said.

Goyal urged the West Bengal government to think about the interests of workers who have to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state should to allow the railways to run more special trains as soon as possible to take stranded migrants home, he said.