Covid-19 lockdown: Priyanka Gandhi urges telecom companies to provide free services to migrant labourers

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called upon telecom companies to make their services free for a month to enable the poor migrant labourers reach out to their near and dear ones.
In separate letters to Airtel chief Sunil Bharti Mittal, Reliance chief Mukesh Ambani, and heads of BSNL and Vodafone, she highlighted the plight of lakhs of migrant labourers walking down to their native places, without food, medicines and shelter.
Gandhi said telecom companies can make a constructive change in the current circumstances, as a large number of such people walking down several hundreds of kilometres to reach their towns, have no money to recharge their phones and cannot talk or reach out to their relatives.
The Congress general secretary said she is writing to them to highlight the human rights of lakhs of migrant labourers who are fighting odds to reach home while being hungry and thirsty and fighting out disease.
"I feel it is our national duty to help the people of the country in this hour of crisis," she said.
"I urge you to make your mobile services free for one month so that those men and women reach out to their near and dear ones easily and not face hardships in talking to them in this difficult phase in their life," she said.
The Congress leader said such an initiative would help reduce fear and uncertainty in their lives.