India’s Central and State government may share the train fares for migrant workers’ return home

• Migrant labourers will now be able to go home for “free”, said BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in his recent Tweet.
  
• Swamy said that the Central government will bear 85% of the cost and the state governments will pay 15%.

The plight of migrant workers stuff in different parts of India without the means of survival or a way back home has been a thorny issue amidst the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown.

Even as state governments made way for them to return home, the fact that many penniless workers had to pay for the train tickets quickly escalated into a political issue in India. The political bickering may now to come to an end soon.

Migrant labourers will now be able to go home for “free”, said BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in his recent Tweet. After a chat with Rail Ministry under Piyush Goel, Swamy said that the Central government will bear 85% of the cost and the state governments will pay 15%. An official confirmation from the government is still due.


"What is particularly disturbing is that the Central government and the rail ministry are charging them for train tickets in this hour of crisis,” Sonia Gandhi, the Congress President and opposition party, had said earlier.

Even Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who belongs to the same Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed his displeasure over the fare of ₹305 being charged from each of migrant labourers brought in a special train from Maharashtra’s Nashik to Bhopal on Saturday (May 2).

So far, both the railway ministry and the state government authorities had skirted the issue when the questions were asked about the fare of ₹305 including ₹30 as superfast charges and ₹20 as surcharge being shelled out by each labourer for the six-coach train.