Streamline travel operations

Bharat Darshan is certainly not on your itinerary when you are desperate to return home after braving a two-month-long lockdown. The 1,400-odd passengers who boarded a Shramik Special train from Maharashtra’s Vasai Road railway station on May 21 eventually reached Gorakhpur (UP) on May 24 after a nightmarish journey that lasted about 60 hours — more than twice as long as the normal duration. The train meandered through Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha, halting unexpectedly at stations such as Rourkela. The Railways claimed that these were planned diversions necessitated by congestion on the usual route. Another train, running from Tamil Nadu to Bihar, took 68 hours to reach Samastipur, with workers and students on board complaining that they did not receive food or water. The Railways started running Shramik trains with effect from May 1 to ferry migrant workers back to their native places, but these ‘horror trips’ show that the operations are not going like clockwork even after three weeks.

Chaos also marked the resumption of domestic flights on Monday as last-minute cancellations by airlines left thousands of passengers stranded. Among them was a soldier, Naik Satish Kumar, who travelled from Ambala to New Delhi in a bus, only to find out that his early-morning flight to Kolkata had been cancelled. Timely communication could have spared him and many others a lot of trouble. Lack of coordination between the Central and state governments – a glaring roadblock witnessed during all four phases of the lockdown – reared its head again as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu allowed only limited operations or delayed reopening of their airports owing to a spike in coronavirus cases. A slanging match between Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray exemplified the Centre-state discord.

The Centre has taken a bold decision to restart domestic flights and enhance rail services at a time when the country is recording thousands of Covid-19 cases on a daily basis. The well-intentioned move, however, could prove counterproductive if passengers keep facing hardships due to mismanagement. Once the authorities have factored in the health protocol, they ought to ensure hassle-free travel.