Ensure migrants return by safe modes: CM

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday directed officers to contact the states concerned and work out a plan for safe return of UP migrants to their homes “only by Shramik Express trains or reliable vehicles such as buses.”

Reviewing the lockdown with his team of officers, the chief minister said: “The state government is committed to the safe return of the UP’s migrant workers. Every incoming migrant must be provided with food and drinking water arrangements must be made for them all along the routes. At transit centres,

screening of migrants for Covid-19 must be done. The state government would help migrants get jobs after they complete their home quarantine.”

Yogi said at the borders of the state, the UP government has made arrangements for food and water for the migrant workers.

“We are making arrangements to send them home from there. Do not let them hop on to unreliable vehicles such as trucks, carriers, bikes, bicycles. Police should sensitise the migrants about their mode of travel and tell them that unsafe vehicles may cause accidents. The PRV 112 should stay active around the roads and do effective patrolling to check movement of migrants on unreliable vehicles,” he said.

Yogi told officers to increase the capacity to pool testing of migrant workers in the next two

three days and also raise the overall testing capacity to 10,000 tests per day,” he said.

Talking on the revival of the economy, Yogi asked the officers to make a work-plan according to the package announced by the central government. Simplify procedures to attract investments in the state, he said.

The chief minister said the role of corona committees formed in villages and towns have an essential role to play to contain the spread of the infection and they should stay active all the time. He asked the agriculture department officers to organise and inspect wheat procurement operations besides asking Food and Civil Supplies department officers to monitor PDS shops to check if people were getting ration. State health minister Jai Pratap Singh; the minister of state for health Atul Garg, chief secretary RK Tiwari, additional chief secretary (home) Avanish Kumar Awasthi and several other officers were present at the meeting.

EXPENDITURE ON TRAINS

Yogi, in a statement in on Sunday afternoon, said the government is running ‘Shramik Special’ trains for safe return of migrants. The railway ministry and the centre will bear 85 per cent of the expenditure incurred on this, while the concerning states will bear the remaining amount. He said if all the states pay their share, migrant workers can reach home safely without paying any fare.