Railways allows more passengers on Board 'Shramik' Specials

NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways on Monday allowed ‘Shramik’ special trains meant for transporting stranded migrant workers, to run at full capacity, with around 1,700 passengers on board.
The special trains were running with a reduced capacity of 1,200 passengers to ensure social distancing, since they began operating from 1st May.

“The train capacity should be equal to the number of sleeper berths on the train,” the revised guidelines for running these trains, issued by the railway board on Monday said.

So far, these trains ran non-stop, between the originating and destination stations. In the revised guidelines, the railway board has allowed up to three stoppages, excluding the terminating station.

This comes as the Centre is pushing to expedite the process to move stranded migrants back to their home states.

Railways minister Piyush Goyal exhorted state governments to issue permissions for the same.

“I once again appeal to all the State Governments to speed up approvals for transportation of stranded migrants through ’Shramik Special’ trains and provide relief to workers at the earliest,” Goyal said in a series of tweets.

We have allocated over 1,200 trains with which we can easily run 300 ’Shramik Special’ trains everyday, so that all migrants can reach their destination safely, quickly and comfortably, Goyal added.

Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla in a letter to chief secretaries of States asked them to cooperate with the Indian Railways to ensure all migrant labourers are sent back to their villages via shramik special trains at the earliest.

ET reported on Monday that the national transporter was preparing to run between 1,200 to 1,500 shramik special trains this week, as it intends to complete the process this week.

As of Monday, 468 Shramik special trains had departed from various destinations in the country.