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The railways said it has operated 366 of such ‘Shramik Special’ trains since May 1 and transported around four lakh of migrants.
The opposition Congress called on the government to show more empathy for migrants and protect them during the crisis, saying what is happening to them is “perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our time.”
Despite the fact that the Center allows special trains for stranded migrants who wish to return to their places of origin, the absolute numbers are overwhelming and many of them are taking the unofficial route of private vehicles or walking hundreds of kilometers in the heat of the summer.
At least six migrant workers died and 14 others were injured when a truck they were traveling overturned in the Narsinghpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday night.
Workers were traveling in the truck loaded with mangoes to Jhansi, Etah and Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh from Hyderabad, police said.
The incident came immediately after 16 migrant workers, who were sleeping on the train tracks as they returned to Madhya Pradesh, being crushed by a freight train in the Aurangabad district, Maharashtra.
The migrant workers, unemployed due to the coronavirus blockade, were apparently walking on the train tracks to escape the attention of the police.
In Delhi, police detected nearly 100 migrants hiding inside two trucks in a desperate attempt to reach home in Bihar, and arrested the drivers.
The trucks were intercepted near the Kalindi Kunj in south-east Delhi on Saturday night. They said that one of the trucks had 63 migrants and the other had 34.
The truck was going to Lakhisarai and Madhubani districts, police said.
The Mumbai-Agra highway through Nashik in Maharashtra witnessed a traffic jam early Sunday morning when hundreds of stranded people attempted to return to their native regions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Eyewitnesses said the people were packed to the brim in private vehicles or were seen calling the passing vehicles to hitchhike. While many of those on the roads were not wearing masks, some were too close to each other in violation of social distancing rules.
Similar scenes, including of people walking in groups and cycling, were also witnessed on the Nashik-Pune and Nashik-Aurangabad highways, they said.
Several videos of the migrant movement on these roads were also distributed on social media.
Minister of railways Piyush Goyal He called on all states to allow the operation of special migrant trains so that the stranded can get home in the next three to four days.
The appeal comes a day after Interior Minister Amit Shah wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow such trains to run.
According to the instructions of Hon’ble PM @NarendraModi ji, Railways is fully prepared to run 300 special Shramik trains … https://t.co/EF4I9Ai9w9
– Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) 1589108272000
“According to the instructions of the Hon’ble PM @NarendraModi ji, Railways is fully prepared to run 300 Shramik special trains every day on short notice since the last six days.
“I call on all states to give permission to evacuate and bring back their stranded migrants so that we can take them home in the next 3-4 days,” Goyal tweeted Sunday.
Senior railway officials say the national carrier has the capacity to operate around 300 trains per day carrying around 20 lakh of migrants in a maximum of five days.
However, they said, state authorizations are not available, especially from states like West Bengal and Rajasthan, which have so far accepted the fewest such trains despite being a significant source of the migrant population.
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba also sought the cooperation of state governments to operate special trains to transport stranded migrant workers.
He was speaking during a video conference with the chief secretaries and secretaries of health of all the states and territories of the Union to review the state of the management of COVID-19.
Shah had accused the West Bengal government on Saturday of not allowing trains to transport stranded migrants home, but the state contested the charge, saying 6,000 migrants had already returned and that 10 trains carrying more workers would arrive soon.
In an online news conference, Congress spokeswoman Supriya Shrinate said migrant workers were the hardest hit by the pandemic as they only received a four-hour notice for the shutdown.
Instead of presiding over the plight of migrant workers, the government should rescue them, as they had no choice but to walk hundreds of kilometers to return home, he said.
She said that almost 50 days after the coronavirus blockade “we continue to wake up to see heartbreaking images” of people without shoes and food walking home.
The images of pregnant women, young children, people on top of a freight truck, those crushed dead as they walked home on the train tracks have been deeply troubling, he said.
“What is happening to our migrant workers is perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our time,” said Shrinate.
The Railways said it has operated 366 ‘Shramik Special’ trains since May 1 and transported four lakhs of stranded migrants to their homes in various parts of the country.
While 287 trains have already reached their destinations, 79 trains are in transit, they said.
Of these 287 trains, 127 ended at Uttar Pradesh, 87 at Bihar, 24 at Madhya Pradesh, 20 at Odisha, 16 at Jharkhand, four at Rajasthan, three at Maharashtra, two at Telangana and West Bengal, and one at Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, officials said.
These trains have transported migrants to cities such as Tiruchchirappalli, Titlagarh, Barauni, Khandwa, Jagannathpur, Khurda Road, Chhapra, Balia, Gaya, Purnia, Varanasi, among others.
Each Shramik special train has 24 carriages, each with a capacity of 72 seats.
However, only 54 people can enter a bus to maintain the rules of social distance and the central berth is not assigned to any passenger.
Since Shramik’s special train service began, Gujarat has remained one of the main origin stations, followed by Kerala.
Among the recipient states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh remain the main states.
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