125 special trains take 1.2L stranded home

NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways transported nearly 1.2 lakh stranded migrant workers, students and tourists by 125 Shramik Special trains till Wednesday and more than 60% of these migrants had either reached Bihar and UP or were heading home in these two states, sources said. Nearly one-third of the trains have started from Gujarat.
Running these trains has resulted in nearly Rs 100-crore loss to railways, they said while referring to an internal assessment done by the national transporter.
Sources at the railway ministry said nearly 40 trains have left from Gujarat with passengers in the past six days while nearly 15 trains each have left from different stations in Rajasthan, Kerala and Maharashtra. Nearly a dozen trains have been flagged off from Telangana and over a half dozen from Karnataka. "About 40 trains have headed for Bihar and nearly 35 trains started for UP. Odisha and Jharkhand are two other states which have received 10 to 15 Shramik trains each," said an official.