Delhi (AsiaNews) – The Supreme Court Thursday ordered India’s central government and states not to charge train or bus fare to migrant workers trying to go back to their home towns and villages.
For India’s highest court, the federal and state authorities must help Indians walking home. Although more than nine million people have already done the trip by rail or road, an equal number is still stranded across the country hoping to get back home.
At the end of lockdown 4.0, India has the highest number of cases in Asia, more than Turkey. The number is steadily increasing every day, 165,242 at the latest count with 89,624 active cases and 4,707 deaths.
Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Indore, Jaipur, are some of the main epicentres of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The central government has already asked state governments for their views about future plans when the lockdown ends on 31 May.
Unemployment and poverty have risen during the pandemic. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), unemployment reached 27.52 per cent in the first week of May, up from 8.54 per cent in March before the lockdown.
Many states like Maharashtra (whose capital is Mumbai), Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat have seen a huge rise in positive cases, and are responsible for migrants who want to go home.
This obviously increases the danger of spreading the coronavirus from one state to another as social distancing and other measures to counter disease are hard to enforce.
