Get more trains, ensure migrant workers don't walk: Centre tells states

Coronavirus and loss of livelihood driving factors for the movement of stranded workers, says home ministry

States and Union Territories (UTs) must ensure that migrant workers don’t walk on roads or railway tracks to reach their destination, said the central government on Tuesday.

The Union Home Ministry asked states and UT to work with the railways and arrange more trains to ferry people, issuing a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) after media reported nine migrant labourers had died in a truck and bus collision in Bhagalpur in Bihar on Tuesday morning.

Ensure that no "no migrant worker has to resort to walking on roads or railway tracks to reach his destination," said the SOP.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, in