Migrants carried to different states from Maha in six trains

Six Shramik special trains were operated from various parts of Maharashtra to ferry the stranded migrants to their home states on Thursday, officials said.

The Central Railway said it ran the first train on Thursday between Panvel in Raigad district and Habibganj in Madhya Pradesh at 12.10 am.

Later in the day, the railway authorities operated Shramik special trains between Thane-Bapudham Motihari (Bihar), Ahmednagar-Unnao (UP), Uralikanchan-Rewa (MP), and Akola-Jabalpur (MP) till 8 pm.

"Except for a train comprising 20 coaches, all other trains were of 24 coaches. Each train carried approximately 1,200 migrants registered and nominated by the state government," a senior railway official said.

Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram said that the train from Uralikanchan railway station on the outskirts of Pune city carried 1,093 migrant labourers to Rewa.

"It will directly reach Rewa on Friday. One meal packet and a water bottle was given to each migrant," he said.

The state government authorities said a Shramik special train departed from Aurangabad for Bhopal with around 1,200 migrants from Aurangabad, Nanded, Beed, Osmanabad and Jalna districts on Thursday night.

They said that the migrant labourers were allowed to board the train as per the social distancing norms and after they were screened by the health department.

The Aurangabad district administration said that the train was completely sanitised before the migrants were allowed to board it and they were provided food and water.

Talking to PTI, deputy collector and nodal officer Appasaheb Shinde said each bogie of the train carried around 55 passengers as part of the social distancing measure.