The Railways will operate five Shramik Special trains from Kerala to various railway stations in Bihar on May 3 to facilitate the return of migrants stranded due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown to their homes.
From Ernakualm North, the trains will head to Barauni and Muzaffarpur. The train from Thrissur will head to Darbhanga. From Kozhikode, a train will reach Katihar while a train from Kannur will reach Saharsa.
Each train will have 24 sleeper class coaches and two SLRs. The rakes for the train orginating from Kannnur railway station is being rushed from Mangaluru junction that comes under Palakkad railway division.
Taking into account that a large number of migrants were from Bihar, the State government asked the Railways to operate the trains to five different railway stations.
The District Collectors and District Police Chiefs of Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur have commenced steps to bring the migrants from the camps, where they are staying after the health screening and registration, to the railway stations.
The ‘Shramik Special’, which will run non-stop and can accomodate only 1,142 travellers in 24 coaches as social distancing norms had to be followed. Some seats have been reserved for the RPF and GRP personnel travelling along with the migrants to provide security.
The Railways have so far operated six Shramik trains for the 3.6 lakh migrant labourers hailing from West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam, held up in 20 labour camps and other places across the State since lockdown began on March 25.