Never talked about charging migrant workers train fare: Centre

New Delhi, May 04: The government on Monday said that it had never talked about charging the workers' train fare. 85 per cent fare will be borne by railways and the rest by state governments.

"We have given the permission to run special trains on states' request. We are dividing the cost in 85-15 per cent (railway: states) as per the norms. We never asked states to charge money from the stranded labourers," Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal told reporters.

Sonia Gandhi had earlier asked Congress workers to raise funds to pay the fare on behalf of the migrants. However, railway officials have said that the Centre was only charging the state 15 per cent of the fare. This facility has been made available so that the migrant workers who are stranded due to the lockdown could reach their destination.

The Centre has been advising states not to encourage migrant workers to travel. It would slow down the economic revival process and the recovery process would also take longer.