Friday, May 29, 2020

COVID Migrant Crisis - Congrats Railways

As per the latest release, "Indian Railways has distributed more than 85 lakh free meals and about 1.25 crore free water bottles to migrants travelling in Shramik Special Trains since 1st May 2020... As on 28th May 2020, 3736 “Shramik Special” trains have been operationalized from various states... Till now, around 50lakh migrants have been transported through Shramik Special Trains in 27 days. It may be noted that trains running today are not facing any congestion.

...top five States/UTs from where maximum trains originated are Gujarat(979 Trains), Maharashtra(695 Trains), Punjab(397 Trains), Uttar Pradesh (263 Trains) and Bihar (263 Trains)... top five states where maximum trains terminated are Uttar Pradesh(1520 Trains), Bihar(1296 Trains), Jharkhand(167 Trains), Madhya Pradesh(121 Trains), Odisha (139 Trains). In addition to Shramik specials, Railways are running 15 pairs of special trains connecting New Delhi and plans to start 200 more time tabled trains on 1st June.

Previously Railways converted numerous coaches to isolation wards and made other facilities available to the common public. One can always say, they could do more. But it is time for us to thank railways for transporting those 50 lakhs plus people stranded across the country to their hometowns and states. During this migrant crisis, this is a great ray of hope. This shows that someone can get their act together and do something to alleviate the stress on migrants who are otherwise traveling to their hometowns located hundreds(if not thousands) of kilometers away on foot and cycles.

Sajeev

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