Rights of migrants protected, Karnataka tells SC

The Karnataka government has told the Supreme Court that rights of the migrants had been protected right from the inception of the lockdown on March 25 by providing food, or rations, and shelter and benefit of Shramik Trains to those who wanted to travel back to their native places.

“Even prior to the order passed by this court on May 28 for free travel and food, the state has agreed to pay the train and bus fare of all migrants who wished to travel out of Karnataka and for those who wanted to return to the state. Technology has been deployed to determine the number of migrants,” it said.

“As on June 3, about 9,13,742 migrant workers have registered to travel outside the state on the Seva Sindhu portal. About 3.00 lakh migrant workers have already departed the state, and an effort has been made to match the details of migrant workers who have left with those registered on the Seva Sindhu Portal,” the state government has said.

The state government said till May 31, nine Shramik trains have been arranged for bringing persons into the state from Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana, and Punjab and the expenses for travel for bringing in migrant labourers and students into the state has been paid fully by it.

A total of 217 Shramik Special Trains have been operated till June 1 from Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Udupi, Mysuru, Hassan, Hubballi, and Ballari, carrying about 3,07,661 migrant workers to different states, such as Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, and Tripura.

On the data available on the Seva Sindhu portal regarding the number of persons registered to travel to respective states, a request has been sent to the Divisional Railways Manager, Bengaluru, to operate 101 Shramik Special Trains from May 30 to June 10, 2020, it added.