Migrant trains to take more passengers, allowed 3 stops
Indian Railways approved on Monday an increase in the number of passengers allowed on board Shramik Special trains it is running for migrant workers returning home after being stranded by the Covid-19 lockdown, and allowed the trains to make three stops en route to their destinations.
Shramik Specials, which have so far been running without any stops on the way, are now allowed to carry up to 1,700 people. The special trains have 24 coaches, each with 72 seats. Until now, only 54 people have been allowed in each coach, with the middle berth left empty to maintain social distancing, meaning each train carried about 1,200 passengers. According to the new guidelines issued by Indian Railways, a copy of which was reviewed by HT, a train’s capacity should now be equal to the number of sleeper berths it has.
The Union home ministry, meanwhile, asked all states and Union territories to cooperate with the railways in running more Shramik Special trains, which started on May 1 after state governments requested the Centre to facilitate the return of migrant workers stranded in various parts of the country because of the lockdown imposed on March 25 for the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I urge upon you all to allow receiving of all Shramik Special trains without any hindrance and facilitate faster movement of stranded migrant workers to their native places,” a letter written by home secretary Ajay Bhalla to state and Union Territory (UT) administrations said.
He also asked states and UTS to ensure that migrant workers do not resort to walking on the roads and rail tracks and use the special trains for travel home.
The developments came a day after railway minister Piyush Goyal said Indian Railways had geared up to run 300 trains a day to ferry migrant labourers to their hometowns. He also appealed to the states to ramp up efforts to ensure these workers reach their destinations across the country in the next three-four days.
“The minister has appealed to all states, especially states that have allowed very few trains (so far)...same was discussed in the home secretary’s VC (video conference) with states yesterday (Sunday), and he has written a letter to them. The home minister (Amit Shah), in particular, has appealed to West Bengal, which has very low numbers (of trains that it has approved),” a railway ministry spokesperson said.
The Centre also said the railways will now run 100 Shramik Special trains daily, and added that 513 such trains have been operated since May 1, carrying over 600,00 migrants to their destinations.
Until Monday afternoon, 363 trains reached their destinations in Andhra Pradesh (1 train), Bihar (100 trains), Himachal Pradesh (1 train), Jharkhand (22 trains), Madhya Pradesh (30 trains), Maharashtra (3 trains), Odisha (25 trains), Rajasthan (4 trains), Telangana (2 trains), Uttar Pradesh (172 trains), West Bengal (2 trains) and Tamil Nadu (1 train). The remaining 105 were in transit, the ministry said.
“This morning, I reviewed the train operations of ‘Shramik Special’ trains. Only 4 trains ran on the first day i.e 1st May which grew to 101 trains yesterday. In total, 468 trains have departed,” Goyal tweeted.