COVID-19: 110 Shramik Trains carry over 1 lakh stranded to NE

Guwahati: Altogether 110 Shramik Special Trains have reached areas under the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) with about 1,10,000 stranded people on board till Tuesday night since May 1.

Informing that the passengers were given free meals, water and necessary medical help by railways as and when required during the journey, Subhanan Chanda, chief public relations officer (CPRO) of the NF Railway, Maligaon said that the Shramik Special Trains were on run continuously as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the request of respective state governments.

“Only those persons enlisted by the state governments and brought to the station can travel on these Shramik Special Trains. No individual including stranded people and migrant labourers can board these trains by coming to any railway station on their own,” the CPRO said.

All the passengers of Shramik Special Trains are mainly students, patients, and migrant labourers with their family members. Out of 110 trains, 13 trains arrived in various Northeast states like Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Assam till Monday night with about 17,000 stranded people of all Northeast states like Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Another six-seven trains will be arriving within the next two-three days in these states with stranded people. While 93 trains arrived in Bihar areas under NFR and one train arrived at New Jalpaiguri and three at New Cooch Behar stations in West Bengal under NFR till Tuesday.

Also Read: Railways transports 14 lakh stranded persons back home in 15 days

In NFR areas under Katihar division of Bihar trains arrived at stations like Katihar, Purnea, Arraria, Kishanganj. Another 11 trains will be arriving in these areas of Bihar and one at New Jalpaiguri within next two days carrying stranded people.

These Shramik Special Trains mainly came from areas like Kozhikkode (Calicut), Kota, Jaipur, Nandurbar, Hisar, Surat, Sirhind Jn, Vadodara, Udaipur, Bharuch, Ghatkesar, Ludhiana, Ambala, Aligarh, Rohtak, Kalyan, Bibinagar Jn, Bhiwani, Jalandhar, Meerut, Dehradun, Rampur, Habibganj, Rayanapadu (Vijaywada), Karaikal, Bengaluru, Karamnasa, Mangalore Central, Moradabad, Namburu, Pettaivaytalai and various stations in Mumbai, Chennai etc.

All the passengers arriving by the Shramik special trains were received by respective civil administration of the states at the railway station after following all necessary Covid-19 protocols.

Also Read: I write poems to beat lockdown blues: Assam railway station master

“Moreover, few Shramik Special trains for transportation of stranded persons from Northeast to states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka by the respective state governments are also planned in the coming days. The Indian Railways has already operated more than 1,565 Shramik Special trains and transported more than 20 lakh passengers across the country till today,” he added.