Shramik Special trains: 67 run so far, 21 more to go on Tuesday

The Indian Railways on Tuesday said that it has so far run 67 Shramik Special trains carrying around 67,000 stranded migrants since May 1.

Till May 4, the railways had run 55 trains, the national transporter said.

"There are 21 trains scheduled for Tuesday mainly from Bengaluru, Surat, Sabarmati, Jalandhar, Kota, Ernakulam. On an average, these trains are carrying 1,000 passengers each," the railways said.

These 24 coach trains, which have a capacity of 72 seats, is now reduced to 54 due to social distancing norms with the middle seat not being allotted to any passenger.

While the railways has officially not stated how much it has spent so far on these services, which the government says has been shared on a 85:15 ratio with the states, officials indicated that for the first 34 trains, the national transporter spent Rs 24 crore, while the states spent Rs 3.5 crore.

Sources said that the railways is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service for the Shramik Special trains.

Earlier, the railways drew a lot of flak from the opposition parties for making these services chargeable.

In its guidelines, the railways has said the trains will ply only if they have 90 per cent occupancy and the "states should collect the ticket fare".