NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, MARCH 28
Day after Home Minister Amit Shah has urged the state governments and the UT Adminstrations to take care of migrants, the Union Home Ministry on Saturday changed the rules for assistance under the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF), facilitating availability of money for food and temporary accommodation for migrant workers during the 21-day lockdown.
In a communication to all chief secretaries, the ministry also said medical care and clothing can be provided to migrant workers during the lockdown period announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
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, a home ministry official said.
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 migrant workers are left with no option but to walk as normal transport services have been hit after the announcement of the nationwide lockdown by Modi on Tuesday.
If food is not available to migrant workers, food riot may be a real possibility, says Pronab Sen
Former chief statistician Pronab Sen has warned that if food requirements of migrant workers with no income are not fulfilled amid countrywide lockdown, then ‘food riot’ may be a real possibility.
In an interview to The Wire, Sen said that if the coronavirus pandemic spreads in rural areas, containment will be impossible.
In wake of the countrywide lockdown to combat the coronavirus threat, thousands of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states have started returning back to their home states from cities, including Delhi and Mumbai.
“The problem is that if food is not made available (to migrant workers) and this, we have experienced in this country earlier, we had food riots during the times of famine.
“…we could have food riots again if food is not made available. Let’s we clear about this,” the economist said while replying to a question on impact of the lockdown on India’s vulnerable section.
“If supply system doesn’t come unstuck, if the requirements of people who have no income are not met then food riots are very real possibility,” Sen asserted.
On Friday, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that from Saturday the government will be serving lunch and dinner to nearly four lakh people at over 224 night shelters, 325 schools and other locations.
He pointed out that the whole objective of the lockdown was to arrest spread of the coronavirus.
“Now, If we are in a situation when a very large number of population are forced to come together at a very short period of time in order to access food, whether it is cooked meal in rain basera or what they have done in Punjab and Uttarakhand which is shops will open only three hours in the morning which is a classic curfew model…you will probably get a higher spread of infection because of this….,” Sen observed.
