NCP slams Centre for not maintaining data on death of migrant labourers

@the_news_21

Mumbai: Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has flayed the Centre for its admission that it has no data on how many migrant workers died in the COVID-19 induced lockdown in the country.

Attacking the Centre, NCP MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed constituency, Rohit Pawar rued the fact that migrant labourers were among the most affected due to the lockdown that lasted for a staggering 68 days.

“These migrants had no choice, but to walk thousands of miles to reach back to their homes. Hundreds of them even lost their lives in the process,” Rohit said in one of his hard-hitting Facebook post castigating the Centre.

He said when multiple questions were raised in the Lok Sabha on the number of migrant labourers who lost their lives, the central government replied: “no such data is available.”

He asked, did the Central Government not see the pain of the toddler’s “vain attempt” to wake up his dead mother from eternal sleep on the railway platform at the Muzaffarnagar railway station?

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Pointing towards the unfortunate fate which the labourers met after they undertook the reverse migration to their home towns, costing them their lives, Rohit said around 50 migrants died of hunger while travelling back.

 “Around 95 to 97 migrants lost their lives in the ‘Shramik train’, ” he said. Is the Central Government not aware of any of these incidents? he questioned.

Elucidating about the hardships faced by migrant labourers, Rohit, one of the vocal faces of NCP underlined that more than 1,000 people–most of them labourers lost their lives between March to July, this year. He said the deceased were not Covid-19 positive, as reported by many newspapers and private organizations.

 “The reasons for their death were mostly because of hunger, weakness, accidents, and suicides which include a kid who was 8 months old and aged who were 85 years of age, as well,” he said.

He said, according to the Railway Ministry data 97 migrants lost their lives. “When the post-mortem was conducted on 87 labourers, 51 of them were identified to have died of heart-attack & brain hemorrhage,” he alleged.

Putting the onus on Centre, he said they should have ensured that migrant labourers can commute to their home towns safely, he added.

Rohit, however, said that the Centre instead indulged in blaming the state government for the chaos that took place when the lockdown forced the workers to head to their natives as they found no job to sustain themselves and their families.

“People who question state governments should also know that they had paid Rs. 433 crores to the Railways for fares to transport these migrants (back home), ” he remarked.

Rohit, grand-nephew of NCP supremo alleged that Centre is shying away from its responsibilities towards the migrant labourers and are busy in taking away the rights from the state governments through new laws.

Commenting on the misery of daily wage earners, he quoted the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data which said that 23.4  percent labourers committed suicide in the country in the year 2019.

He said as many as 32,559 daily wage earners committed suicide in the country. “89 labourers commit suicide every day in the country. If we look at the statistics of the suicide cases of daily wage earners of the states, Tamil Nadu reported 5,186 cases, followed by Maharashtra which reported 4,128 cases”.

He said suicide cases have been reported from Madhya Pradesh (3,964), Telangana (2,858), Kerala (2809) and Gujarat (2,649). He said 65 per cent of these suicides hail from poor economic backgrounds where the yearly earning has been less than 100,000 per year, which suggests that the country’s economy is in bad shape.

Berating the role of “national media”, he said it is no surprise that the Central government does not have any data on the death toll of the labourers in the country. “It is also unfortunate for the democracy that the national media is busy covering the suicide case of a celebrity for more than 2 months & the central agencies have also been made busy in such investigations,” he said.

Stating that important issues have been put on a backburner, he remarked that no one talks about them.

Hailing the role of regional media, he said, “I am proud that our Marathi media, newspapers & portals have distanced themselves from TRP based news and are discussing the actual issues in the Nation.”