The migrant's issue has become a matter of concern for the Modi government. The exodus of migrants is among the major challenge faced by the State and Central government in curbing the coronavirus. During the time of partition, the same kind of exodus took place. People started to migrate from India and Pakistan. It is said that India is
facing the biggest exodus after Partition due to Corona pandemic.
As per reports, Indian Railways have run about 2,050 trains for stranded labourers in various states in the country, but despite this, 70 per cent of people are still waiting to go home. Although the states have given many exemptions in this phase, as far as migrants are concerned, the problems have not reduced for them.
The Railways have helped more than 30 lakh migrant labourers, students and tourists in going back to home, who were stranded due to the lockdown by running 2,050 labour special trains. However, as per data from various states, a large number of people are still waiting for trains or buses to return home. As per an elite newspaper, only 30% of migrants from Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab have managed to return home. Now, Indian Railways is preparing to run 350 trains, as per sources, the railways had planned to take 3 million migrant labourers home, but now it seems that this number is much more. This is the reason that the Railways is now ready to run 300 to 350 trains daily till the demand. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said that 50 per cent of the labour special trains (1,054) were the destination of Uttar Pradesh and 25 per cent (562) ended up in Bihar.
20 lakh registrations in Maharashtra
As per Union Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal, Gujarat has flagged off 636 labour trains, the maximum number of trains running from any state. Goyal praised the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat for this work. He said that some states like West Bengal, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are not helping to bring migrants to their homes through these trains.
As per data from Maharashtra, 20 lakh migrants trapped in the state had registered with the state administration to go home. Of these, about 5 lakh people have reached their homes by special trains. According to sources in Mumbai Police, 3.5 lakh migrants in the city had registered with the police to return home. Of these, more than two lakh Pravasi have left via special trains. It is clear that a large number of migrants stranded in other cities of the state are waiting for their turn to return home.
Haryana figures show that 10.93 lakh people had registered to return home, but till Wednesday around 2.08 lakh people had travelled to their homes through 53 trains and 4,2457 buses. A total of 1.76 lakh migrant labourers wanted to return to Haryana once the work started but only 11 thousand of them have returned.
The exodus of people during India's partition:
The exodus of migrants in times of pandemic compared to the time of partition is very less. During the time of partition as many as 14 million people crossed from one side of the new border to the other and perhaps a million more died, are hardly exact. The numbers today appear to be much smaller. These migrants aren’t fleeing violence and aren’t being attacked by marauding gangs, or other refugees, along the way; there’s no sectarian dimension to the exodus. And this great migration is unlikely to result in any permanent demographic shift: Workers will almost certainly return to cities once the economy revives and the jobs that originally drew them begin to reappear.