2 more trains take 2,000 passengers to UP, J’khand

Ludhiana: Northern Railways Ferozepur Division ran two more Shramik trains from Ludhiana to Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand on Wednesday.
The first train (04610) carrying 950 passengers departed for Bareilly around 10.50am after following standard protocols of maintaining social distance and wearing masks. The 20-coach train will take eight hours to reach Bareilly after covering 478km.
The other train (04608) of 24 bogies left for Daltonganj, Jharkhand, around 2.45pm with 1,188 passengers. The train will cover 1,262km and reach Daltonganj station around 12pm on Thursday without a halt at other stations.
After the first Shramik train left Ludhiana for Prayagraj on Tuesday night, railways sanitized the entire station. Tents have been set up on the premises for waiting passengers. After printing tickets, the railway authorities handed them over to the state government for distribution.
The administration has deployed 50 roadways buses for picking up passengers from across the district and dropping them at the station, where they are screened and verified.
Raj Kumar, who works in a factory in Focal Point, said, “I am boarding the train to Bareilly. I made the tough decision of leaving Ludhiana as my wife and children are in UP and they had been waiting for me since the lockdown was imposed.”
Jatinder Yadav, who too boarded the Bareilly train, said, “I worked at a construction site. After curfew hit our work, we lost our salaries. Now, we have run out of money. We cannot pay our house rent and make ends meet. Therefore, I decided to go back home.”
The railways department officials said migrants started arriving at the station early Wednesday morning to catch trains to their home states. “Many of them were not aware about the procedure to get themselves registered on government portals for returning to their native places. The district administration has set up helpdesks outside the station for guiding migrants,” said an official.
Demand for train to MP
Sources in railway department said, “The local administration has raised the demand of running another special train from Ludhiana to Katni in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday morning.” Now, the railway authorities are busy managing bogies for rest of the trains that might be used for ferrying thousands of migrants. On Wednesday, too, railways sanitized the entire station after two special trains departed.