Railway Minister Piyush Goyal Appeals All States To Permit Operation Of Shramik Special Trains

Taking to his official Twitter handle, Railways Minister said that following the directives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian Railways is all set to run as many as 300 Shramik Special trains everyday.

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Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday appealed all the states to allow the operation of migrant special trains in order to bring the stranded migrants to their homes in the next three to four days. Taking to his official Twitter handle, Railways Minister said that following the directives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian Railways is all set to run as many as 300 Shramik Special trains everyday.

As per the directions of Hon'ble PM @NarendraModi ji, Railways is fully geared up to run 300 Shramik Special trains everyday at short notice since the last six days.

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) May 10, 2020

"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.

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.

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) May 10, 2020

The appeal came a day after Home Minister Amit Shah wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow such trains to operate. On Saturday, the TMC government claimed it had given clearance to eight trains to be run carrying its migrant home. Four of these trains were to depart on Saturday, which did not. On this, senior railway officials said 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, 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 the migrant population," Railways officials said. As on May 10, the Indian Railways operated 366 Shramik Special trains and ferried home around four lakh migrants stranded in various parts of the country amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Railway Ministry in an official statement mentioned that while 287 trains have already reached their destinations, 79 trains are in transit. The officials further informed that out of these 287 trains, 127 terminated in Uttar Pradesh, 87 in Bihar, 24 in Madhya Pradesh, 20 in Odisha, 16 in Jharkhand, four in Rajasthan, three in Maharashtra, two each in Telangana and West Bengal, and one each in Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.