Shri Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(C), has issued the following statement on BJP government’s shameless refusal to bear the cost of ferrying the stranded hapless migrant workers back home on 3rd May, 2020.
The BJP-led central government hitherto remaining silent on the humanitarian issue of crores of migrant workers stranded in different states, is now asking the state governments to bear the cost for ferrying workers by train. This government very recently has written off Rs 68,607 crores of bank loans defaulted by 50 firms including those owned by fugitive business tycoons Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya etc. The finance minister has admitted in parliament that the amount of moneys foregone on reduction in corporate tax and other relief measures to business houses will be Rs 1.45 lakh crore annually. A sum of Rs 20,000 crore has been allotted for central vista beautification near the Parliament House and Rashtrapati Bhavan. For buying two special missile-proof Self-Protection Suites (SPS)-fitted luxury aircrafts for Prime Minister and President of India, Rs 8,458 crores would be spent from public exchequer. Rs 80 crores was expended for just one hour visit of US President Trump to Ahmedabad in last February. On the other hand, three serving Indian Revenue Service officers have been charge-sheeted because they, along with 50 other such officers, recommended raising the highest tax rate to 40 per cent for people with annual income above Rs 1 crore , a wealth tax for those with net worth of Rs 5 crores or more, a one-time Covid relief tax of 4 per cent for individuals with taxable income of more than Rs 10 lakhs per annum, imposing higher tax on foreign companies, re-introduction of inheritance tax and raising the equalisation levy as possible source of government earning in view of the economic crisis.
We severely condemn this anti-poor pro-rich stand of the government even at this hour of grave crisis and call upon all sensible conscientious countrymen to raise their united voice to compel the government to not only bear the entire cost of transportation as well as adequate relief to the misery-stricken migrant labourers but ensure that these fellow citizens of ours are not deprived of their ‘right to live’ and that too decently.
