Indian Railways Marks A Milestone: Shramik Specials Transport One Million Stranded Passengers

Indian Railways has crossed the milestone of transporting more than one million stranded passengers to their home states through Shramik Special trains since its inaugural May Day run.

Besides, nearly 50,000 passengers have travelled on AC Specials to 15 destinations across the country since 12 May amid the Covid-19 lockdown.

However, after many cases of passengers travelling in trains were later found to be Covid-19 positive, the railways has started keeping records of destination addresses of all passengers booking their tickets to help facilitate contact tracing in case infections are detected among them later.

The provision to include the destination address has been made on the IRCTC website from 13 May, said a railway official.

The official said that keeping in view the coronavirus crisis, it will be mandatory for passengers to fill up their address details for any bookings.

In less than 15 days, the state-run transporter operated 800 Shramik Special trains until 14 May across the country with passengers being given free meals and water onboard.

Of these, Uttar Pradesh received the maximum number of trains followed by Bihar, according to the railways.

Shramik Special trains are being run by the railways only after concurrence is given both by the state which is sending the passengers and the state which is receiving them.

Acting upon the Ministry of Home Affairs order regarding movement of migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other people stranded at different places by special trains, Indian Railways had decided to operate Shramik Special trains.

These 800 trains were terminated in various states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

Proper screening of passengers is ensured before boarding the train.

In AC Specials, a total of 234,411 passengers have booked their berths until now with railways earning Rs 45.30 crore from the sale of tickets.