The Bihar government has reached out to at least 14.5 lakh migrants stranded in Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of the country, amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, and provided them meals, dry ration and other
essential items, officials here said.
The state government has also been doling out a special assistance of Rs 1,000 to distressed migrant workers after verification through the Direct Benefit Transfer system.
Two days after a large number of labourers, many of them from the state, had gathered at the Bandra station in Mumbai, heeding rumours that arrangements were being made to send them home, the Bihar government took up the matter with Maharashtra, while also making efforts to establish contact with the anguished workers, Bihar Minister Sanjay Jha told PTI on Thursday.
"The Bihar chief secretary spoke to his Maharashtra counterpart on the same day and sought help for the stranded migrants there," he said.
Principal Secretary, Bihar State Disaster Management Department, Pratyaya Amrit, said a total of 14.56 lakh migrants have been provided relief so far in camps set up for the purpose in Delhi and Mumbai, and states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and West Bengal.
The state government is supplementing the efforts of the local administration at these places, Amrit said.
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Applications for special assistance have poured in from at least eight states, including Haryana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and Delhi.
As part of the special assistance programme, launched by the government on April 6, about Rs 8 lakh has been debited directly in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, he said.
"In accordance with the instructions of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, we are trying to reach out to every single person who is contacting us over helpline numbers at the CM's office, the disaster management department or the Bihar Resident Commissioner office in Delhi," Amrit said.
Heart-wrenching images of jobless labourers and marginal workers walking back home, after suspension of transport services, were splashed on all TV channels and social media platforms, following the imposition of the nationwide lockdown in March end.
Some of them were grounded midway by the administration in other states.
The chief minister had appealed to them to stay put wherever they were and promised that his government would provide necessary assistance to them.
The April 14 incident in Mumbai further laid bare the woes of the migrants, many of whom have lost daily wage jobs.
Amrit, whose department is coordinating relief operations, said 14 camps are functioning in Mumbai itself.
He also said that the government-funded relief operations in far-off places, including Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Sikkim, are being carried out with the help of the Bihar Foundation's chapters and their affiliated organisations.
The Bihar Foundation -- a forum for the state's diaspora -- has Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who also head the JD(U), as its patron and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi as its chairman.
Jha, a close associate of Kumar, said the government has taken stock of the situation in the relief camps of Mumbai and elsewhere, after Tuesday's unfortunate incident in Mumbai.
At several places the workers are not receiving help from local authorities, he stated.
"We, at the party level, along with officials and their personal contacts, are trying to redress their problems," the state water resources minister said.
In a scathing attack on opposition RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav for trying to "gain political mileage out of the Mumbai episode" Jha, who is also JD(U) general secretary and the party in-charge of Delhi, said, "It does not behove a person to make a political statement, when everybody else was rising above politics to fight the danger posed by the deadly virus."
Tejashwi had criticised the Nitish Kumar government over the poor plight of stranded migrants following the April 14 incident.
The state minister took a swipe at RJD heir apparent, saying "Why is he not with the people of Bihar in this time of need instead of registering his presence through tweets from Delhi?"
In the national capital, around 20,000 people are provided lunch and dinner, maintaining social distancing norms, in ten camps set up in migrant-dominated localities of Badarpur, Lakshmi Nagar and Palam among other places.
Apart from the state government and the Bihar Foundation, many organisations in Mumbai, have come forward to help the migrants left in the lurch due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Pratibha Nalin Gramin Mahila Vikas Charitable Trust in Mumbai has distributed dry ration including rice, pulse salt, sugar, cooking oil, assorted spices, besides potato and onion, to the poor in several parts of Mumbai.
Nalin Pandey, who heads the trust, said the beneficiaries were mostly from Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
"A needy is a needy... Our volunteers do not discriminate among people on the basis of caste, religion or region during crisis," Pandey added.
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