The Centre on Thursday asked state governments to arrange food and shelter for migrant workers who are facing difficulties due to the 21-day lockdown announced to check the spread of coronavirus.
Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, PunyaSalila Srivastava said students, who are in hostels, should continue to staythere for their own safety.
“We have asked the state governments to arrange food andshelter for the migrant workers. We are sensitising everyone that wherever theyare, they should remain there. Students should continue to remain in hostels,”she said at a press conference here.
There have been reports of a large number of migrant workersleaving their work place in different parts of the country and walking down totheir native places, hundreds of kilometres away, facing hardships on the way.
The migrant workers reportedly started their journey on footas there was no transport available after Prime Minister Narendra Modiannounced the 21-day lockdown on Tuesday.
Srivastava said the central government is regularlymonitoring the situation so that there is no crisis of essential commodities.
“A control room has been set up by the Union Home ministryto monitor the situation 24×7. With constant monitoring, we hope that therewill be no crisis of essential commodities during the lockdown period,” shesaid.
Srivastava said there were some problems in inter-statecargo movement but they have now been cleared up.”Fortransport of medicine to some remote areas like in the Northeast, the Ministryof Civil Aviation is making arrangements for chartered aircraft,” she said.