Amid differences between the Centre and some states over the movement of migrants by trains, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday sought to remind the Union government to go for “cooperative federalism”, saying flights should not be landed in states without the approval of the state governments.
Puri, who handles the Civil Aviation portfolio tweeted: “It is not upto @MoCA_GoI or centre alone to decide on resuming domestic flights. In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the govt of states where these flights will take off & land should be ready to allow civil aviation operations (sic.)”
This comes hours after the Centre said that consent of the destination states is not needed for ‘Shramik Special’ trains to carry migrant workers stranded in other parts of the country. The Central government has also accused some states — Bengal, Bihar and Karnataka — of denying permission for special trains.
Railway spokesperson Rajesh Bajpai had on Tuesday said that consent of terminating state is “not necessary” to run ‘Shramik Special’ trains.
Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have been vocal about the movement of migrants by trains amidst the lockdown.
Home Minister Amit Shah had reportedly spoken to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow more trains to enter her state.
The Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) allowed states to give permission to run the special trains. Now the Union government has modified it and under the revised SOP, state’s permission is no longer required to send trains carrying migrants.
As per the reports, the Centre has also asked states to allow trains carrying migrants to stop at more stations to prevent them from jumping off the trains when it passes by their home districts.
Till now, the Centre has been running trains from one point in a state to another point in another state. It has also asked the Railways to ensure that the migrants know about the schedule of the train 24 hours in advance.