The Centre today directed the state chief secretary Rajiva Sinha to arrange temporary accommodation, food and medical aid for stranded people including migrant workers under the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) during the 21-day lockdown. The Union Home Ministry has changed rules for providing assistance under SDRF.

According to the new rules of the SDRF, “provision for temporary accommodation, food, clothing medical cure etc., would be applicable to homeless people, including migrant labourers, stranded due to lockdown measures and sheltered in relief camps and other places”.

Sanjeev Kumar Jindal joint secretary Ministry of Home Affairs has sent letters to all chief secretaries including Sinha about the new SDRF rules, stating that medical care and clothing can be provided to migrant workers during the lockdown. There have been reports of a large number of migrant workers leaving their work places in different parts of the country and walking down to their native places, hundreds of kilometres away facing hardships on the way.

The Ministry has asked the state government to provide necessary assistance for these people. Two days ago, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had written to the chief minister of 18 states requesting them to provide basic amenities such as food, shelter and medical aid to the workers from West Bengal, who are stranded in their states due to the lockdown.

She had written that Bengal has many workers ~ semi skilled and unskilled ~ working in different parts of the country and due to complete lockdown in the country, many workers could not travel back and are stuck at different places.

Following which, Sinha has spoken to the chief secretaries of all the 18 states requesting them to help the stranded people from Bengal. In Bengal, hotels, home stays, lodges and motels, which are accommodating tourists and persons stranded due to lockdown have been exempted from the ‘Complete Safety Restrictions’ and thus are operating normally.

The state government had issued a notification in this regard. Moreover, Police commissioner Anuj Sharma told yesterday that if people stranded in other states face problems then they can seek assistance from city police by dialing 100.