Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday appealed to all states to expand the operation of special Shramik trains so that stranded migrant workers can reach their homes in the next three to four days.
"As per the directions of Hon'ble PM @NarendraModi ji, Railways is fully geared up to run 300 Shramik Special trains every day at short notice since the last six days. I appeal to all the states to give permission to evacuate and bring back their stranded migrants so that we can get all of them back to their homes in the next 3-4 days itself," Goyal tweeted on Sunday.
The central government had increasingly come under attack for its handling of migrant crisis after lakhs of workers started walking on their own hundreds of kilometres amid the lockdown. Until recently the government had been making efforts to persuade migrants to stay put in cities to ensure the virus doesn’t spread to villages, but is now running special trains to take back stranded migrants home.
The trains are run only if states that has to send and receive migrants are in agreement. The task of identifying migrant workers to send them back and fare collection is also on the states.
As on May 10, a total of 366 Shramik Special trains have been operationalised across the country, of which 287 had reached their destinations and 79 trains are in transit. According to officials, over 3.5 lakh migrant workers travelled in these trains.
Senior railway officials say the national transporter has a capacity to run around 300 trains per day ferrying around 20 lakh migrants in a maximum of five days.
However, they said, clearances from states are not forthcoming, especially from states like West Bengal and Rajasthan, which till now have accepted the least number of such trains despite being a significant source of migrant population.
Goyal’s appeal comes a day after Home Minister Amit Shah wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow such trains to run.
On Saturday the WB government claimed it had given clearance to eight trains to be run carrying its migrant home. Four of these trains, it said, were to depart on Saturday.
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