The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president GA Mir Friday attended online video conferencing with AICC treasurer and general secretary (Org), briefing them over the handling of situation by Centre & UT Administration in wake of COVID-19. JKPCC president gave feedback to AICC Treasurer Ahmed Patel (MP) and general secretary (Org) KC Venugopal about the overall situation prevailing in the backdrop of the lockdown. He told the leaders that it was worth mentioning that the initiative of Congress resident Sonia Gandhi to provide rail fare to the migrant labourers was hailed by common masses, besides putting the Govt at defensive, as that, the Centre has not been able to do anything for stranded laboures except making baseless statement and false promises. Mir told the leaders that after failing to address the hardships confronting stranded labourers, besides the initiative taken by the Congress president, the Centre has started sabotaging the relief measures by trying to retain maximum number of migrant labourers in order to divert the attention from its utter failures. JK UT Administration had claimed that around 40,000 stranded people outside JK, other than the stranded students, except some at the border of Kathua, have not been brought back or granted permission to return, thereby adding more chaos to the already complex situation, people fail to understand as to what the UT Administration or Centre are saying and what they are doing with regard to bring back stranded people or return of migrant labourers to their native places. Ironically, the outside stranded people from J&K were also not being responded for granting permission or their requests for bringing them back to their native places, which is very condemnable, indicative of big failure on the part of the authorities. He said that Centre should announce train and travel schedule for migrant labourers and people from JK stranded in different parts of the country. The labourers in J&K intending to return have not been given any permission despite the various announcements, as a result most of them have started moving on foot, confronting with acute shortage of ration and without pocket money. It has also been reported that influential and blue-eyed person are being allowed to travel, but the common people, who are in great difficulty are being forced to suffer, which is highly condemnable, PCC president told Patel and Venugopal. Mir apprised that JKPCC has written to the Chief Secretary on May 6, requesting him to share the details of the laboures intending to return back from J&K to respective States and those intending to return here from other States, so that the Party takes initiative with regard to the announcements made by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi on rail fare to the labour class, but there is no response to the Party from the Govt so far. Mir said there were many of complaints of inadequate facilities and ill-equipped quarantine Centers set up at many places in JK UT causing most inconvenience to people.
