Gehlot urges Centre to adopt a planned strategy to solve issues of migrant workers

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday urged the Centre to come up with a strategy for ensuring the inter-state movement of migrant workers across the country during the lockdown period to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in the country.

In a series of Tweets, Chief Minister Gehlot urged the Centre to adopt a planned strategy with a "unified command structure of communication to the States."

"In the fight against COVID-19, the whole nation stands united. The Centre should show the same unity when it comes to issuing guidelines for the States irrespective of the party lineage of ruling parties in the States. Since the day one I have been saying that a strategy must be devised for a smooth movement of migrant workers stranded across the country, but unfortunately, there is no clarity on the same," Gehlot's tweet reads.

"Planned strategy with a unified command structure of communication to the States can be more fruitful instead of unofficially communicating to different States by different officers such as MHA and Cabinet Secretariat to facilitate the movement of students and migrant workers -- this is not a comprehensive solution to the migrant problem we are facing," he added in the following tweet.

The Rajasthan Chief Minister also called for special trains to be run as part of the strategy to solve the hardships being faced by migrant workers.

Migrant workers across the country have been stranded at the place of their works and have been demanding to be allowed to go back to their native places, citing the closure of sources of income and other hardships they have to face amid the lockdown, which was extended to May 3 by the Centre.

With 1,490 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and 56 deaths, India's total count of coronavirus patients has surged to 24,942, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

The total cases are inclusive of 5,209 cured and discharged patients, one migrated, and 779 deaths. At present, there are 18,953 active COVID-19 cases in the country.

( With inputs from ANI )

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