The South Central Railway (SCR) has announced on Sunday that it had operated 93 Shramik Special trains carrying about 1,18,229 migrant labour to their to their hometowns up north.
These trains were operated only after concurrence was given by both States i.e., the State sending the passengers and the State receiving them, informed senior officials.
In fact, the zone has been the first to run such special train between Lingampalli and Hatia on May Day. Since then, it has run 54 trains from Telangana carrying 69,299 passengers; 28 trains from Andhra Pradesh carrying 34,489 passengers and 11 trains from Maharashtra falling in its jurisdiction carrying 14,441 passengers.
However, contrary to the earlier claims, the railways has tossed the social distancing mode aside by allowing middle berths to be filled in these trains as well as the other Rajdhani specials being run even while officials claimed that thermal screening of passengers is being done before they get in.
Officials also said that the coaches were sanitised thoroughly. While 21 trains originated from Lingampally, 12 began their journey from Ghatkesar, eight from Bibinagar, six from Nagulapally, four from Bollarum, two from Cherlapally and one from Medchal.
From Andhra Pradesh, the trains were - seven from Rayanapadu, five from Kurnool, four each from Chittoor and Nambooru, two each from Kovvur and Nellore, one each from Nidadavolu, Mangalagiri, Ongole and Kadapa. From Maharashtra, eight trains were run from Aurangabad, two from Jalna and one from Nanded.
Senior officials explained that most number of trains, about 28, have been run towards Bihar followed by 22 towards Uttar Pradesh, 11 towards Jharkhand, 10 to Madhya Pradesh, seven each to Rajasthan and Odisha, three to Maharashtra, two for Chattisgarh and one each to West Bengal, Uttarakhand and even as far as Manipur.
The train towards Manipur in a way is the longest distance travelled during this period of about 2,871 km and next comes the train from Chittoor to Sahasra in Bihar for a distance of 2,589 km.
Railways has been providing food and drinking water during the journey, said General Manager Gajanan Mallya.
