Maharashtra: Transporting cost of migrants must be taken care by 'home states'

The entire country is under lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic. Many migrant workers are stuck due to the lockdown and want to go back to their natives. In order to send them back to their home Maharashtra government is trying hard to facilitate return of migrant workers to their native places. The state government is in talks with chief ministers of other states to send them back to their natives in a planned manner, said Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Wednesday.

The state government wants the other state governments concerned to take care of the cost of transporting their migrants back home. A final decision on this will be taken on Thursday, a senior government official said. 

“We have a total of 12 to 13 lakh migrants in Maharashtra, out of which 10 lakh may be interested in going back to their own states, and many of them may not come back,” he said. The main concern is who will bear the cost of transporting the migrants back to their native states as the sheer numbers indicate it will be a burden on the state exchequer.