New Delhi: Amid a major political ruckus involving train fare ferrying stranded labourers from across India, the central government on Monday clarified that Railway Ministry will bear the 85 per cent of the fare and the remaining 15 per cent will be made by the state government.
"Based on the request made by state governments, we have given special permission to transport stranded workers. We never talk on charges. However, it is to inform you that Railway Ministry will bear the 85 per cent and state government will bear the remaining 15 per cent of the train fare," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Health Ministry.
The clarification given by Agrawal assumes much more significance as the issue of train fare for transporting stranded workers has created a huge controversy after Congress President Sonia Gandhi in a statement on Monday morning asked state units of the party to bear the train fare of such migrants workers.
The ruling, BJP, however, criticised Congress for politicizing the issue and said that government (central government) will bear 85 per cent of the fair and state government will bear the remaining amount.
Agarwal said that almost all the state governments have agreed and working accordingly on train fare. "Except one or two states, all state governments are paying the minimum amount," said Agarwal.
Also read: Cong to bear cost of rail travel of every needy migrant worker: Sonia Gandhi
If sources are to be believed, the Maharashtra government is making the migrants pay some amount of the fare.
It is learnt that Maharashtra Minister Nitin Raut has written to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray requesting him to bear the cost of the ticket.
It was Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who first requested the central Government to run social trains to ferry stranded workers to their home state amid a long nationwide lockdown.
After that several other states also requested for the same. On Friday, Railways ran five trains, the first day of running of Shramik Special, followed by 10 on Saturday.
The railway ministry has planned to run 25 special trains on Sunday but ran only 10 trains for Bihar, Jharkhand, Bhubaneswar, Odisha among others.
Railways will run special trains for West Bengal and few other states too.
The Home Ministry in a guideline has said that state government may consult with each other on the train fare.
"The state government (from where the train will start) can talk with another (destination state) over the fare and mutually they can agree upon," Puniya Salila Srivastava, joint secretary in the Home Ministry has earlier said.
The train fare issue has been utilised by the opposition parties to criticise the BJP led central government.
Also read: Centre acting ‘inhumanely’ towards migrants: Congress’ KC Venugopal
"If you are stuck abroad during this Covid crisis, the government will fly you back for free. But if you are a migrant worker stranded on another state be prepared to cough up the cost of travel...," said National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah.
Similarly, CPI-ML criticised the central government for not utilising PM Cares fund.
"The situation with the migrant workers was a result of the Centre's abrupt announcement of a lockdown," said CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
