With 140 Shramik Trains, Railways Have Ferried Around 1.35 Lakh Migrant Workers To Their Homes

The Indian Railways is often called the lifeline of the nation, and it is living up to its reputation, once again at the time of need, buy transporting thousands of migrant workers who were stranded elsewhere back to their home states.

AFP

The Indian Railways which suspended regular operations after the lockdown came into effect on March 25 had resumed limited service on the request of various states to help stranded migrant workers reach home.

Since Friday, when the first special train left Telangana for Jharkhand the railways have run over 140 Shramik Special trains and ferried home over 1.35 lakh migrants stranded in various parts of the country. Railways which had initially planned 42 trains for Wednesday managed to run 10 more by 9:30 pm.

BCCL

"We are planning to run some more trains by the end of the day," a railway spokesperson said. Till Tuesday night, the national transporter had run 88 trains for the migrant workers who were stranded at their workplaces due to the lockdown and wishing to go back to their homes.

Every special train has 24 coaches, each with a capacity of 72 seats. But the national transporter is allowing only 54 people in a coach to maintain social distancing norms by not allotting the middle berth to any passenger.

While the Railways has officially not stated how much it has spent so far on these services, the cost for which the government says has been shared on an 85:15 ratio with states, officials indicated that the national transporter has spent around Rs 80 lakh per service.

BCCL

Since the beginning of the services, Gujarat remained one of the top originating stations, followed by Kerala. Among the receiving states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh remained the top states.

Earlier, the railways drew flak from opposition parties for making these services chargeable. In its guidelines, the railways have said the trains will ply only if they have 90 percent occupancy and the "states should collect the ticket fare" amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The migrant workers had to pay regular sleeper class tickets plus superfast charges of Rs 30 and an additional charge of Rs 20, which was collected by the states and then handed over to the railways.

However, the Railways later clarified that the ticket rate only amounts to 15 per cent of the cost it incurs for transporting the stranded people. On Monday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi announced that party will bear the charges of rail tickets of migrants.