256 Shramik Special trains cancelled by states: Railways

New Delhi, June 3

As the operation of Shramik Special trains move towards culmination, Railways’ data showed that of the 4,040 trains run till Sunday, 256 were cancelled by state governments, with Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh being the top defaulters.

Maharashtra cancelled 105 trains since May 1, and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has been very vocal about the trains the state demanded but did not use.

Gujarat, from where the maximum number of trains originated, defaulted on 47 occasions, followed by Karnataka (38) and Uttar Pradesh (30), the data showed.

Officials indicated that most trains were cancelled due to a lack of coordination between the originating and the terminating state.

“We cannot run the trains without proper protocol. There were cases where the originating states did not provide us the list of passengers ready to board the trains so it had to be cancelled. The cancellations were primarily due to the lack of coordination between the two states,” an official said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs amended the protocol for Shramik trains in mid-May, removing the need for consent from terminating states for these services. This cut out the possibility of any state not accepting the trains.

Gujarat, which cancelled the maximum trains after Maharashtra, also ran the maximum 1,026 migrant special trains, ferrying more than 15 lakh migrant workers to their home states.

At least 77 per cent of the total 15.18 lakh migrant workers were sent to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and remaining to West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The Maharashtra government facilitated the movement of 802 trains, second only to Gujarat, with 423 trains bound for Uttar Pradesh and 193 for Bihar.

Of the 227 trains originating from Karnataka, 70 went to Bihar and 57 to UP.

Of the 294 trains originating from UP, 138 ran within the state while 129 went to Bihar.

Other states that cancelled the Shramik trains included Delhi (7), Telangana (9), Andhra Pradesh (6), Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (4 each), Rajasthan (2) and Goa, Haryana, Kerala and Uttarakhand (1 each).

As on Wednesday, the Railways has run 4,197 Shramik trains.

While 81 trains are in transit, 4,116 have reached their destinations. Only 10 more Shramik trains are in the pipeline.

The Shramik trains are being operated primarily on the request of states that want to send migrant workers, stranded due to the coronavirus lockdown, home.

While the Railways is bearing 85 per cent of the total cost of running each train, the rest is being borne by states in the form of fares.

The lockdown has had a devastating impact on the economy as well as on the livelihoods of lakhs of migrant workers. The plight of migrant workers, who had started walking from several urban centres to their villages hundreds of kilometres away, had grabbed headlines for almost two months.

Many of them were killed in road accidents. In one incident, a number of migrant labourers were run over by a train after they fell asleep on the tracks due to exhaustion.

The Railways also said that nearly 80 per cent of ‘Shramik Special’ trains were destined for various destinations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Officials said there were requests for 321 more trains according to the demands sent by states by May 30.

The Railways will run them in a staggered manner depending on the requirement of the states, officials said. A decision on the discontinuation of these trains will be taken soon.

The Railways is to run 30 Shramik trains on Wednesday, officials said. PTI