As cities gradually unlock, the Railways is helping bring back workers to their working destinations with more and more train services.

During the past seven days from June 11 to 17, approximately 32.56 lakh passengers including migrant workers had travelled by long distance mail/express trains with maximum occupancy from areas like Eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha to various destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Chennai.

Meanwhile, continuing with oxygen delivery, 448 Oxygen Expresses have delivered more than 32,464 MT of liquid medical oxygen across the country as well.

Till now, 614 MT of oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5,722 MT in Delhi, 2,354 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 4,333 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 5,674 MT in Tamil Nadu, 4,190 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 3,366 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 560 MT in Assam.

In order to facilitate the movement of migrant labour from the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha to the metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, Indian Railways is operating Mail/Express specials, holiday specials and summer special trains.

All the trains are being operated as fully reserved trains keeping in view the Covid protocol. The booking for these trains is available to the travelling public through Passenger Reservation System (PRS) at reservation counters and also through online mode by using e-ticketing system.

As of June 18, as many as 983 Mail/Express and holiday specials — which is 56 per cent of the pre-Covid level — are being operated by Indian Railways.

In addition, about 1,309 summer specials have also been operated to facilitate the movement of people wanting to return to their place of work. These summer specials provide connectivity primarily from states like Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam to major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Bengaluru among others.

For the next 10 days from June 19 to 28, approximately 29.15 lakh passengers including migrant workers have recorded bookings by long distance mail express trains from areas like Eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha to various destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Chennai.

The zonal railways are actively coordinating with various industry associations and business houses to ascertain the demand and facilitate the movement of workers accordingly. The summer special trains are operating between different origin destination pairs like Gorakhpur-Mumbai, Bhagalpur-Mumbai, Bhubaneswar-Pune, Danapur-Pune, Barauni-Ahmedabad, Patna-Delhi, Samastipur-Mumbai, Sealdah-Delhi, Raxaul-Delhi, Saharsa-Delhi, Danapur-Secunderabad, Raxaul-Secunderabad, Patliputra-Bengaluru, Chapra-Mumbai, Guwahati-Bengaluru, Gorakhpur-Hyderabad, among others.