KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday announced that West Bengal government would bear the entire cost of movement of migrant workers returning to their homes in West Bengal from other states by special trains.
“Saluting the toil faced by our migrant breathen, I am pleased to announce the decision of GoWB to bear the entire cost of movement for our migrant workers by special trains from other states to West Bengal. No migrant will be charged,” Banerjee said in a tweet.
Banerjee also posted on twitter the letter written by chief secretary Rajiva Siha to Railway Board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav in this regard.
In the letter dated May 16, Sinha wrote that the entire cost of movement by special trains to West Bengal of migrants of the state stranded in various parts of the country would be borne by the state government.
The chief secretary wrote that railway officials must be given instruction to refrain from claiming costs at the station of origin from people boarding Shramik Special trains headed for West Bengal.
Sinha also urged Yadav to run the trains as per requisitions made by West Bengal government.
Mamata Banerjee, it may be noted, recently announced making arrangement for 105 Shramik Special trains to ferry migrant workers from West Bengal stranded in other states.
The first of these trains is slated to leave Mumbai today for Howrah. Similar trains are supposed to run for the next 30 days from various places of the country in bring back to West Bengal workers from the state stranded outside in the wake of the lockdown.