The Shramik trains organized for escorting migrant workers have 24 coaches each with the capacity of 72 passengers in every coach.
The ‘Shramik’ migrant trains will now function at full capacity of 1700 passengers instead of present 1200, the railways revised rules on Monday.
As per the latest order by Railways on special migrant trains, the railway zones have also been told to inform about three other stoppages in the destination state other than the final stop.
“The Railways has a capacity to run 300 trains per day and we want to maximise it. We want to carry as many migrants home as possible over the next few days and have appealed to states to send approvals,” a senior railway official was quoted saying by the news agency PTI.
The railways have informed that the train capacity should be equal to number of sleeper births on the train.
The Shramik trains organized for escorting migrant workers have 24 coaches each with the capacity of 72 passengers in every coach. Currently, the trains are running with a capacity of 54 passengers per coach due to social distancing norms and other lockdown rules.
Since May 1, Indian railways has so far ferried over 5 lakh migrants.
The migrant workers got stranded in other states as the nationwide lockdown was imposed by the government. As the migrants slowly ran out of money and foo, they started walking back towards their home states. The government faced heavy flack for mishandling the migrant issue.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
