Center permits interstate travel only to distressed migrant individuals

The Center on Sunday told the states and Union Territories that the relaxations for inter state development was just implied for those “upset people” abandoned at different places in the midst of the across the country lockdown to battle Covid-19.

The lockdown, enforced first on March 24 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, was to end on May 3. But due to the severity of the current situation, it has been prolonged by an additional fourteen days till May 17. On Friday, the Center began facilitating special trains to move vagrant laborers, travelers and students abandoned in different states. Lakhs of migrant laborers have likewise enrolled to come back to their homes.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla alluded to the service’s organization reported a week ago and said that the “help provided in the order is intended solely for distressed people”. He added that it doesn’t apply to those class of people who are “dwelling ordinarily at places other than local spots for work related purpose and who wish to visit their local places in normal course”.

On April 29, the Ministry of Home Affairs decreed state governments to select nodal specialists to enroll such abandoned people and encourage their development, while keeping a tab of security measures in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

With organizations overturned and businesses shut down, countless number of daily wage workers, a significant number of who have lived where they worked, were unexpectedly left with no means for food and shelter in urban communities after the lockdown was first reported a month ago. A large number of them, including entire families, determined to walked in helpless condition along interstate highways to their homes.