Will pay for transportation of 9.5k migrants says Congress

New Delhi, May 10: The Delhi Congress has forwarded two lists of nearly 9,500 migrant workers to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying that they want to return back to their native states and the party is ready to pay for their train fares.

A day after sending names of 2,106 migrants to Kejriwal, Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar on Saturday sent another list of 7,299 workers from various states, saying that they have approached the party seeking its help in their transportation from Delhi to their native states.

Kumar, in a letter to Kejriwal, requested him to make proper arrangements for smooth and safe journey of the migrant workers to their respective states.

The migrant workers have sent their requests to the Delhi Congress for train tickets to go back to their native states, Kumar said.

"Delhi Congress, as decided by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, will foot the train fares of the migrant labour if the Delhi government makes arrangement for their journey," he said.

Delhi Congress wrote to the chief minister and the Delhi government's chief secretary as well, expressing its readiness to pay for the train fares of the migrants, said the Delhi Congress president.

Delhi government in last few days arranged train travel of 1,200 migrant workers from Bihar and over 1,000 from MP, who were sheltered at government facilities while trying to go back to their respective states during the lockdown.

Delhi government in a statement on Friday said it has decided to bear the cost of train travel of the migrant workers if their home states do not respond on the matter of bearing their travel cost.

As per current guidelines, the Central government and the home state of the migrant workers have to bear the cost of their travel, it said.

The Delhi government has already reached out to respective states with the list of their migrant workers stranded in Delhi. Most of these states are yet to respond on bearing the travel costs of these stranded people, the statement read.

The Delhi government has decided to bear the cost to avoid any further inconvenience to stranded workers, added the statement.