In U-turn, Karnataka govt allows migrants to go back

SURAT/LUDHIANA/LUCKNOW: Karnataka reversed on Thursday its decision to stop special trains for migrants after widespread anger and condemnation even as thousands of workers in other parts of the country said they opted to not go back to their native states because of slowly expanding employment opportunities.

The Karnataka government wrote to Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha to seek their consent for receiving the workers and said it intends to start daily trains from Friday until May 15.

Two days ago, the administration had withdrawn its request to the railways to run the trains. The decision had come hours after chief minister BS Yediyurappa met representatives of the construction industry who expressed apprehension that projects will grind to a halt if workers left the state in thousands.

But the decision angered migrant workers who said they feared for their health and wanted to go home, and stirred a political controversy with the opposition Congress saying the government was treating the migrants like bonded labour.

But not everyone wants to leave, especially from India’s industrial towns, where factories are slowly rebooting.

In Gujarat’s Surat, officials say only 200,000 of the 2.5 million migrant workers have registered to go back home. Similarly, in Bengaluru, of about 1.5 million workers, around 100,000 have registered.

The reason: Current lockdown rules allow almost all industries in green and yellow zones.