COVID-19: ‘200 Shramik Special’ Trains Carry 2.5 Lakh Migrants Back Home

NEW DELHI: Indian Railways has said that it has operated about 200 Shramik Special trains since May 1 and ferried home nearly two and a half lakh migrants stranded in various parts of the country due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

.@RailMinIndia started ‘Shramik Special Trains’ for the Movement of Stranded Persons. #IndiaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/cPrjmeHdt8

— MyGovIndia (@mygovindia) May 1, 2020

Railways has run 222 Shramik Special Trains for movement of stranded persons, more than 2.5 lakh people have made use of this facility so far: Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/M8JF8y5LwD

— ANI (@ANI) May 8, 2020

Forty such trains departed yesterday, including the first train to originate from New Delhi carrying 1,200 migrant workers to Chattarpur in Madhya Pradesh.

Railways said it ran 56 Shramik Special Trains on Wednesday.

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.

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.

from League of India