New Delhi: Since the beginning of Shramik Special trains, the Indian Railways has been augmenting its daily capacity of transporting migrants back home.
Till date, the Railways has operated 932 Shramik Special trains, ferrying home 11 lakh migrant workers who were stranded in various parts of the country due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.
Yesterday and today, the Railways operated 145 such trains. Of these, UP and Bihar were the biggest receiver states.
Out of the 932 trains which have been operated so far, 215 are in transit while 717 have terminated at various stations.
These 932 trains were terminated in various states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
Proper screening of the passengers is being carried out before they board the trains. The passengers are also being given free meals and water.
From Monday, these Shramik Special trains started carrying around 1,700 passengers each, instead of the earlier 1,200, to ferry as many workers home as possible.
Earlier there were no stoppages but now the trains can stop at 3 stations before reaching the destination states.
While railways is yet to announce the cost incurred on these special services, officials indicated that the national transporter is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service.
