The families of 16 migrant workers, who were run over by goods train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad last year, are still awaiting their death certificates, reported PTI. The migrants en route to their home state Madhya Pradesh during the coronavirus-induced lockdown in May, last year. As they slept on rail tracks due to exhaustion, a train ran over them.

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11 of the 16 migrants were from MP’s Shahdol district and the remaining from the neighbouring Umaria district.

In the absence of the death certificates, the family members said they were unable to carry out important tasks related to banks and also cannot avail the benefits of government-run schemes, PTI reported.

The district administration of Shahdol said it has recently sent a letter to the authorities in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad, requesting them to give the death certificates of the deceased to their families, an official said.

The family members of the deceased here said that they had applied for the death certificate before the then Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Jaisingh Nagar.

“However, the official said that the death certificate will be issued by the authorities where the mishap occurred,” Sunita Singh, wife of one of the deceased Rajbahor, told PTI.

She said that in the absence of her husband’s death certificate, she is unable to get the widow pension of the state government.

Chandrawati, the wife of another deceased Deepak Singh, said the death certificate is required to avail the benefits of all the government-run schemes.

Parvati Singh, the wife of another deceased Brajesh, said she was not able to get the works related to banks done in absence of a certificate.

Gajraj Singh, who lost his two sons in the incident, said the bank officials have been asking him to bring death certificates to operate the accounts of the deceased.

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However, Jaisingh Nagar’s SDM Dileep Pandey said the death certificates will be issued by the authorities under whose jurisdiction the accident took place.

“We recently wrote two letters to the Aurangabad administration in this regard,” he said.

According to him, the district collector of Shahdol also recently talked to his Aurangabad counterpart in this regard.