9 Shramik trains ferry over 10K migrants from Capital

NEW DELHI: The Northern Railways on Wednesday said it had operated nine Shramik Special Trains from railway stations coming under the jurisdiction of Delhi Division, ferrying around 10,000 to 11,700 migrant workers from the National Capital Region.

Officials here said that while the state administration does a headcount while dropping migrant workers off at the railway stations, there are instances when certain symptomatic migrants are sent back from the station. “But on an average, each train carries around 1,100 to 1,300 passengers,” one official said.

The Delhi Division of the Northern Railways also includes stations in Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Panipat. In addition, a total of 32 Shramik trains had departed from all Northern Railways stations.

As per the Delhi government, a total of over 2.71 lakh migrant workers have been sent back home since May 1 on Shramik Special trains, while thousands of others wait for their turn to board a train home. Delhi government figures showed that the greatest number of migrant workers had been ferried to Bihar.

As of Tuesday, over 1.2 lakh migrant workers had boarded trains to Bihar. UP is second on the list, while other states include West Bengal, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

And while the Delhi government and district officials in the Capital continue to register migrant workers for Shramik trains every day, thousands of migrant workers stranded here since the lockdown began, continue to face problems with the online registration process.

Many migrant workers have been turned away from Screening Centres, citing a lack of trains for the day and many others are yet to receive confirmation of their travel despite registering for the Shramik trains over two weeks ago.