A day after allowing a batchof 150 migrants from Surat in Gujarat to travel to Odisha in private buses, authorities on Tuesday permitted a group of 36 workers to proceed to Siddharthnagar in Uttar Pradesh.Thousands of migrant workers from various states are stuck in Surat and other cities of Gujarat since the coronavirus-enforced lockdown came into force on March 25.The state government shifted about 4500 migrant workers to their native states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in the last three days by deploying state transport buses."The government shifted around 4,500 stranded migrants to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by deploying buses."On April 27, as many as 2,314 labourers from Rajasthan, living in 158 labour camps in Gujarat, were shifted to their native places using 84 state transport buses. Collector of Dungarpur district in Rajasthan received them," Additional Chief Secretary, Labour and Employment, Vipul Mitra Mitra said in a statement.All labourers were screened before boarding and social distancing norms were also followed."This is in continuation with the massive exercise launched on April 25 when 2,300 workers from Madhya Pradesh were shifted to their native places by deploying about 100 state transport buses," the IAS officer said.He added that as many as 898 labourers from different districts in Gujarat were also shifted to their home districts or their place of work from different labour camps."Today, 36 migrants were given the permission to travel till Siddharthnagar in UP in a private bus, which was sanitised thoroughly before its journey," said Surat MLA Sangita Patil.This was made possible due to the intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, she said."The migrants were very happy. More migrants will be given the permission to leave for their native states in the days to come," the MLA said.On Sunday, Navsari MP CR Patil said that Amit Shah had asked the Gujarat government to allow people to go to their native places on their own expenses.Amidst the lockdown, Surat had witnessed incidents of violence and stone pelting by migrant workers who are desperate to go home.
