Indian Railways Ready To Run 300 ‘Shramik Trains’ Everyday: Piyush Goyal

Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal has called upon states to cooperate with Centre so that all the stranded migrant workers in different parts of the country could return to their homes in the next "3-4 days itself."

Goyal tweeted on Sunday that the Indian Railways was fully prepared to operate 300 Shramik Special trains on daily basis at short notice for the last six days.

As per the directions of Hon'ble PM @NarendraModi ji, Railways is fully geared up to run 300 Shramik Special trains everyday at short notice since the last six days.

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) May 10, 2020

The Indian Railways has operated 350 Shramik Special trainssince May 1 and ferried home more than 3.6 lakh migrants stranded in variousparts of the country amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, officials werequoted.

Every Shramik Special train has 24 coaches, each with acapacity of 72 seats.  However, only 54people are allowed in a coach to maintain social distancing norms and themiddle berth is not allotted to any passenger.

 While the railwayshave not yet announced the cost incurred on the special services, officialsindicate the national transporter has spent around Rs 80 lakh per service. Thegovernment had earlier stated that the cost of the services has been shared onan 85:15 ratio with states.

Since the Shramik Special train service started, Gujarat hasremained one of the top originating stations followed by Kerala. Among thereceiving states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh remain the top states. Earlier, therailways drew flak from opposition parties for charging for these services.