Around 25,000 workers, stranded outside Assam, have contacted the PCC, seeking fares for their return tickets to the state, the state Congress has claimed.

The PCC has constituted a committee comprising general secretaries Pankaj Borbora and Ranjan Bora who have been appointed as convener and chairman of the committee respectively to organise the effort to bring back stranded people from other states.

This committee functions as a helpdesk and is in close contact with different states, AICC Covid control rooms and collects a database of the stranded people.

The Assam PCC in a statement on Tuesday claimed that the helpdesk had received a good response and already nearly 25,000 people had contacted it.

On May 4, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the PCCs would take responsibility for the payment of return rail tickets for all workers and migrant labourers who want to return to their home states.

In order to coordinate the effort with Dispur, a three-member PCC delegation called on Assam chief secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna last week seeking a list of all workers and migrant labourers currently in other states who wish to return home and the cost of their train tickets.

“While we have undertaken to bear costs of rail travel of the concerned people, we require the government’s cooperation as it administers critical logistics. We are pleased with the chief secretary’s response who has assured us of all help and has forwarded our memorandum to additional director-general of police (law and order) G.P. Singh who is the nodal officer for inter-state transportation of the stranded people,” Borbora said.

“The need of an Opposition party to undertake such a measure has revealed this government’s disregard for the concerns of India’s migrant workers who face an unprecedented existential crisis due to the lockdown. At a time when a majority of them are out of work, the exploitative character of this government has become exposed through its decision to compel poor people to incur costs for home-bound rail travel. ”