Cong leader asks about relief to dead migrants' kin, govt says provided water, food, footwear

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari on Wednesday took to social media platform to slam the government for not "revealing" the data of migrant workers who died while walking back home during the lockdown.

However, in reply to his question in Lok Sabha, the government has admitted that in 81,385 road accidents between March-June 2020, 29,415 people have died.

In a veiled attack on the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress MP, who represents Sri Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha seat, said, "No prizes for guessing who bulk of these unfortunates were when traffic was minimal due to lockdown."

"All probability substantive numbers were poor migrants walking back home," said Tewari in his tweet while tagging the reply given by MoS for Transport VK Singh to a question asked by him.

Singh, in his written reply on Tuesday, said, "A total of 81,385 accidents occurred on the roads, including National Highways (NHs), during the period March-June 2020 with 29,415 fatalities."

However, the minister stated that the Transport Ministry does not maintain data in respect of persons injured or died in road accidents on NHs between March 23, 2020 to May 1, 2020, while walking to their villages/home towns due to the national lockdown.

In reply to Tewari's question — whether the government has provided any compensation to the next of kins (NoKs) of those killed and injured on NHs due to the government's inability to provide them with the requisite transportation facilities to reach their respective destinations during the mentioned period, the minister said, "In order to assist the movement of migrant labourers walking on foot on the various NHs all across the country, necessary assistance were provided in terms of food, drinking water, basic medicines, footwears, etc."

"Migrants were also provided with the resting places to take rest and assistance in terms of the arrangement of transport to take them to the places nearest to their destinations," VK Singh said.

The minister's reply also added that the Ministry of Home Affairs had facilitated the movement of migrant workers to their native places through Shramik Special trains and buses from 29 April onward.

Tewari has also asked the reasons for not making arrangements by the government to safely transport migrant workers and others to their respective destinations during the lockdown period.