The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday said that 62 ‘Shramik special’ trains for migrants have been run by the Indian Railways to carry around 70,000 travellers. "Indian Railways have run 62 special trains till now for migrant workers carrying about 70,000 travellers. More trains are expected to run in coming days," Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, MHA said.
The special trains are being run to transport migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons stranded at different places in the country due to lockdown. The countrywide Covid-19 lockdown, which was scheduled to end on May 3, has been extended by another two weeks till May 17. The special trains were operated from different states to carry the migrants to the states of their origin.
The railways will have to bear millions these special trains. Only 15% of the total was paid for by state governments while the remaining 85% was borne by the Railways, the official added.
With a subsequent increase in the number of ‘Shramik special’ trains in the coming days, the ministry is likely to incur millions on the transportation of migrant labourers to their native places. A fierce political war broke out over the issue of train fare for the migrant workers returning home, with the Congress declaring that the party and its state committees would pay the fare to enable workers to return to their native places.
The Union government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that the railways was bearing 85% of the fare cost, and state governments had to pay 15%, thus allowing migrants to go back home free of cost. On May 1, the first train carrying 1,225 migrant workers was run from the Telangana’s Lingampalli railway station to Hatia in Jharkhand, after the Railway Ministry acceded to the request of the state government for facilitating their return.
It was the first special train to be run by the railways to ferry the stranded migrants since its services were suspended due to the coronavirus lockdown.
The special trains were operated from Bengaluru, Surat, Sabarmati, Jalandhar, Kota, Earnakulam and other places. On an average, the bogies which have a capacity of 72 seats now carry 54 passengers due to the social distancing norms with middle seats not being allotted to any passengers.
