Moved by the plight of migrant workers walking on roads, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday instructed officials to set up a facility for every 50 km to supply food, water and basic necessities to them.
He also asked officials to chalk out a plan to help these workers get transportation to reach their destination safely without having to walk long distances, an official release said.
"Moved by the scenes on the roads, the Chief Minister has ordered officials to set up a facility every 50 km to supply food, water and basic necessities to groups of migrant workers who are walking on the roads," the release said.
Over 22,000 migrant workers have been repatriated to various states like Odisha, Jharkhand and UP and many more trains are scheduled. The state government has been making timely arrangements to send back those migrant workers who express a desire to get back to their respective states, the release added.
A senior official had earlier said that the state government was footing the complete expenditure of the migrant workers up to the last mile and also providing Rs 500 to each person for out-of-pocket expenses.
In the first week of May, the Andhra Pradesh government said that it had identified 12,794 migrants who were willing to go back home.
Stating that it had set up an inter-state control room in Vijayawada with a helpline number and appointed a nodal officer to ensure hassle-free departure of the migrant workers stranded in the state, it said that 10,696 migrant workers were lodged in government-run relief camps while another 2,098 were in camps run by non-governmental organisations.
The highest number of 2,602 migrant workers were from Uttar Pradesh, followed by 1,110 from Bihar, 1,086 from Telangana, 822 from Karnataka, 745 from Madhya Pradesh and 499 from West Bengal, state Transport Principal Secretary M T Krishna Babu had said.
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