New Delhi: A month after millions of people, mostly migrant workers were stranded without work in different parts of the country, the Union Home ministry on Wednesday finally allowed states to repatriate them to reach home.
"Due to lockdown, migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons are stranded at different places. They would be allowed to move," the MHA order issued by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said.
The Central government has, however, refused to run special trains to take them home as demanded by some states such as Maharashtra. They would have to travel in buses.
The MHA stated that this has to be done through mutually-agreed terms between two states and the movement has to be carried out in sanitised buses with required social distancing. Only asymptomatic people would be allowed to travel and the second assessment of their health would be made upon their arrival in their home state. Based on this, they would be kept in home or institutional quarantine upon arrival. Several states such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had already started bringing back people from their states home though the Central guidelines till Tuesday evening did not permit such travel. This had put Chief Ministers of states such as Bihar under immense pressure.
States such as Bihar had protested and even shot off a letter to the Centre saying the extraction of students from Kota was in "utter violation of national guidelines".
All those people who avail the opportunity will be encouraged to use 'Aarogya Setu' app through which their health status can be monitored and tracked.
The Union Home Secretary issued the order in his capacity as the chairperson of the National Executive Committee under the Disaster Management Act.
The Union Home Ministry also said the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on home quarantine should be followed by the authorities concerned.
The decision comes in the backdrop of increasing inability of states to sustain migrant labour in their states even as revenue sources dry up. There have also been frequent instances of violent labour agitations in Maharashtra and Gujarat in recent days with migrant workers demanding to be transported back home. Maharashtra has openly demanded arrangements to be made for inter-state transport of labour.
While announcing the lockdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said people should remain wherever they are. At the beginning of the first phase of the lockdown, thousands of the migrant workers started moving by foot from cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad to their respective places, creating a humanitarian crisis.
This led to the Home Ministry directing the state governments not to allow the migrants to move, arrange shelter homes for them and provide them food. The states were also allowed to even use money from the National Disaster Response Fund for providing food and shelter to the migrant workers.