Andhra Pradesh opens free food centres for migrant labourers walking back home due to COVID-19 lockdown
High Court orders Telangana to provide free ration to lockdown-affected people
Hyderabad: As hundreds of thousands of starving migrant workers walk hundreds of kilometres back home, Andhra Pradesh has set an example of how the crisis can be handled in a better way.
The YS Jaganmohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh has decided to open free food centres at a distance of every 50 kms to provide food and drinking water to the migrant labourers and their families.
The state government is also exploring the possibility of arranging free transport for the migrants to take them to their respective destinations.
The never-ending stream of famished and exhausted migrants, their family members and children walking home in the summer heat has become a common sight across India since the government imposed a lockdown to deal with the coronavirus. Many migrants have died in road accidents as well as due to starvation and exhaustion.
In this exodus Andhra Pradesh has become a major transit point as the labourers pass through the state going towards Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.
According to an official press release from Andhra Pradesh chief minister’s office. Jaganmohan Reddy asked the officials to ensure that shelters at every 50km should provide all the necessary amenities to the migrants.
Though Shramik trains loaded with hundreds of migrant labourers were being run by the federal government and so far 22,000 people have left by these trains from Andhra Pradesh to different states, they are unable to meet the continuing surge of the poor migrants. In many cases the labourers were not able to bear the train tickets.
In another gesture the Andhra government was also paying Rs 500 each to the migrant workers travelling by the trains.
In neighbouring Telangana the High Court has come down heavily on the government asking why it was not able to arrange food for the migrants. On a public interest litigation the court has asked the government to provide ration to all the migrant labourers without asking for biometric details. Similarly, the court wanted delivery of free ration and Rs1,500 financial assistance to all the needy families even if they don’t have ration cards.
On a PIL filed by social activist SQ Maqsood, a division bench directed the government to provide 12kg of free rice and other essential items.
The court asked the government through the advocate general B.S. Prasad to ensure that all the poor including migrant laborers and tribal families were provided free rice and essential commodities. The court also wanted that all the families whose ration cards were cancelled be covered under the scheme.
Thousands of migrant labourers in Hyderabad and other parts of the state and those who were passing through the state to reach their destinations were largely dependent on the food being distributed by the social workers and NGOs.