With a surge in demand for migrant special trains to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Railways is struggling to maintain the operating schedule of its Shramik Special trains leading to major diversions — and complaints from travelling workers.
The Railways has operated over 2,810 Shramik Special trains since May 1, carrying over 37 lakh passengers, 80 per cent of whom were bound for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, leading to major congestion on the routes, the Railways said.
While 1,301 of these trains were bound for Uttar Pradesh, 973 terminated in Bihar.
“We are travelling in Shramik train from MAS(Chennai Central Railway station) to Udhampur…and literally with our empty stomach. We had been told that we will be given food in Itrasi, but to our fate and administration, we got nothing,” tweeted Sajid Nabi tagging the railway minister.
Within an hour, he tweeted again, saying that women and children have been without food for 26 hours.
Despite his tweets, he had failed to get food at Itarsi and Bhopal and was expecting it at Jhansi.
This train left Chennai on May 23 at 5:30 pm and was yet to reach its destination.
Another train from Tamil Nadu to Bihar took 68 hours to reach Samastipur and workers and students on board claimed that they had not received food or water from the Railways.
“Most of the destinations in Uttar Pradesh are around the Lucknow-Gorakhpur sector. In Bihar, it’s around Patna. Of 565 trains that began their journeys yesterday, 266 were going to Bihar and 172 to Uttar Pradesh.
The convergence of trains to these destinations caused congestion on the network. Further, increased time taken in de-boarding of passengers due to various health and social distancing protocols at stations is leading to congestion at terminals which further affects network congestion,” the Railways said in a statement.
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