COVID-19 : Congress writes to mobile cos seeking free calls for migrants

The Congress party on Sunday wrote a letter to owners of Jio, Vodafone-Idea, BSNL and Airtel seeking free calls on their networks for migrants amid coronavirus lockdown in the country.

New Delhi [India], Mar 29 : The Congress party on Sunday wrote a letter to owners of Jio, Vodafone-Idea, BSNL and Airtel seeking free calls on their networks for migrants amid coronavirus lockdown in the country.

"Congress has written to Mukesh Amb (Jio), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Vodafone-Idea), PK Purwar (BSNL), and Sunil Bharti Mittal (Airtel) urging them to make incoming-outgoing calls free on their networks, for one month, for migrants amid coronavirus lockdown," said Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi.

Earlier in the day, the central government has issued directives to state governments and union territories to put returning migrants in the nearest shelter by the State/Union Territory government quarantine facilities after proper screening for a period of 14 days as per standard health protocol.

The development comes after hundreds of migrants, including daily wage workers, started to walk all the way to their hometowns from several cities, after the country was placed under a 21-day lockdown to contain COVID-19.

A total of 1024 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in India.

( With inputs from ANI )