The poor, unregistered migrant workers are the biggest sufferers of the lockdown imposed nationwide due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The migrant workers are leaving the big cities to their native villages as they don’t have resources to sustain the lock-down period of 21 days imposed in India with their families –Â including women, young children, older people of the family and differently-abled persons -walking on foot for hundreds of kilometers, with no food, no water, transport, medicine or shelter, need help.
The public interest litigation, filed by lawyer Alak Alok Shrivastava, seeking support to the migrant workers to combat the crisis will be heard by the Supreme Court of India today.
The poor, unregistered migrant workers, working in various big cities of India as rickshaw-pullers, ragpickers, construction workers, factory workers, house-maids, servants, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, are hit hard amid the coronavirus lock-down.
As all transport services are halted across India to prevent the transmission of the intensely infectious virus, thousands of daily-wage migrant workers left the big cities for their hometowns on foot.
After a national outcry, several state governments have arranged for transportation to help the workers reach their native home towns and villages, there are concerns that these workers might take the virus back home.
The state governments have been ordered to seal their borders and strictly follow the lock-down orders and the center has been directed to provide food and shelter to those stranded, including migrant workers.
The pandemic has killed 27 people in the nation with more than 1000 cases reported.
