Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Wednesday said that the railway administration should not charge migrants who are travelling back to their homes since they have been stranded amid the lockdown with no money and work.

He also claimed that the Ministry of Railways has neither given a discount on the rail fare of migrants nor waived off completely.

Advertisement

In a tweet he said that the Indian Railways should come clean on how it is charging full fare from every single migrant labourer travelling back home.

“All claims that the Centre is picking up 85% of the tab are completely false! Such complete lack of empathy for the poor is unheard of,” he said.

This comes a day after the Centre said it “never talked about charging migrants,” returning to their natives places, for train travel, while adding that the railways is bearing 85 per cent of the total cost incurred with the states being charged the remaining 15 per cent.

The clarification came after several opposition parties including the Congress attacked the Government accusing it of charging stranded migrants for train travel amidst the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of novel Coronavirus.

“We have given the permission to run special trains on states’ request. We are dividing the cost in 85-15 per cent (railway: states) as per the norms. We never asked states to charge money from the stranded labourers,” Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal told reporters.

The Ministry of Railways sources had earlier clarified that only a standard fare, which is just 15 per cent of the total cost incurred by the railways is being charged from the state governments. They also stated that the Indian Railways is not selling any tickets to migrants and is only boarding passengers based on lists provided by states.

The ministry further said that the railways is “fulfilling its social responsibility of providing safe and convenient travel especially to the poorest of the poor in a time of crisis.”

Amidst criticism that the Indian Railways was charging stranded migrants for ferrying them home, sources quoted by PTI said payments for 34 ‘Shramik Special’ trains that have been run so far, have been made by the state governments, barring Maharashtra.