Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention to arrange special trains for the next 10-15 days, beginning May 5, for transporting migrant workers stranded in Punjab to their home States.
Mr. Singh has urged the Home Minister to direct the Ministry of Railways to make suitable arrangements, since the migrant workers stranded in Punjab were “understandably restless to return to their native places.”
The Chief Minister’s request came as over 6.44 lakh migrant workers successfully registered on the State government’s web portal.
In his letter to Mr. Shah, the Chief Minister said that his government would indicate its daily requirement of trains in advance to the Ministry of Railways for the next 10-15 days to transport all the people who had registered on the portal.
At the local level, officials were coordinating with senior Railways officers and the officers of the recipient States to plan the smooth movement of the migrants, said Mr. Singh.
The Chief Minister pointed out that a large number of workers come from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other eastern States to seek temporary employment in the industrial and agricultural sector in Punjab. “These people, who were due to leave in March, normally after Holi, could not leave due to the imposition of lockdown this year,” he said.