The Congress held an online campaign on Thursday to highlight the problems of migrant workers and reiterated the demand for immediate direct cash transfer of ₹10,000 and ₹7,500 per month for a period of six months.

Inaugurating the campaign, Congress President, Sonia Gandhi said that the entire country except the government was pained at the distress of migrant workers who had to walk back hundreds of kilometres to reach their villages.

She said that crores of people lost their jobs, lakhs of businesses have been shut, factories were closed down, and farmers suffered a lot to sell their products. “The entire country went through agony, but the Centre did not even care for the people,” she said.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi urged the Centre for immediate cash assistance to the poorest families and increase the MNREGA working days to 200 days in a year to ease the burden of this pandemic on the people.

Participating in the campaign, former finance minister, P Chidambaram said: “We demand that each migrant worker family returning to their homes should be given free transportation. After being tested, each migrant worker family should be given ₹10,000 to tide over the present crisis,” he said.

Punjab’s Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh, sought Centre’s immediate intervention for cash transfer to all migrant workers and poor, providing greater employment to rural poor under MGNREGS and financial assistance for MSMEs, other than loans.

comment COMMENT NOW