At a time when the nation is battling corona crisis which has jeopardized the life and livelihood of crores of people, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has appealed to the Centre to transfer funds directly into the accounts of the migrant workers so as to help them tide over the financial hardship they are in today.

Asking the Centre to provide one-time financial help of Rs 10,000 to each migrant worker Banerjee has written on the Twitter “People have been facing economic hardship of unimaginable proportions because of the ongoing pandemic. I appeal to Central Govt to transfer Rs 10,000 each as one-time assistance to migrant labourers including people in unorganised sector.”

 Suggesting the Centre to utilize a portion of the PM-CARES fund for the purpose she wrote PM-CARES fund “could be used for this” purpose.

The Chief Minister who had earlier said that there should be a fund similar to the PM-CARES too for the Chief Ministers said that the migrant workers were in a deep financial crisis from where they needed to be rescued. She said the State Government would itself had provided the help if there were adequate funds in its hands.

In an apparent reference to the repeated allegation by the top BJP leadership that the Bengal Government was stopping migrant workers from entering Bengal by not receiving trains provided by the Centre she said the allegation was totally false.

“If we had stopped the people from coming back to Bengal then how could 6.5 lakh workers return to the State by buses? If we had stopped trains then how could 2.4 lakh workers return by the trains … this is in addition to the 1.5 lakh more workers who are scheduled to return in a few days,” she said claiming that the State Government had paid Rs 25 crore as train fare of those who were returning to the

State.

On the measures taken after the large-scale devastation left behind by the super cyclone Amphan she said her Government had been able to kickstart major relief and rehabilitation work to repair the damages left behind by “the fiercest storm in our recent memory.”

She said, “Through the resilience of Bengal and its people, along with a determined effort” by the Government machinery, “we have been able to kickstart major relief and rehabilitation work for the distressed, with an immediate announcement of a Rs 6,250 crore package as first tranche.”

The cyclone had claimed 98 lives and felled more than 2 lakh trees in the fragile Sunderbans delta considered to be the “weather shield” of Kolkata. It had also uprooted about 15,000 trees in and around the State Capital.

Earlier she said that her Government had released Rs 1,444 crore towards the rehabilitation process adding money had been transferred to nearly five lakh affected people for repairing their houses. About 23.3 lakh farmers too have been provided with crop damage assistance she said.