PIB News Update: Railways is helping to bring back workers, as cities gradually unlock.
During the past 7 days (from 11.6.21 to 17.6.21) approximately 32.56 lakh passengers including migrant workers and other passengers traveled by long distance mail express trains (with average occupancy of trains being 110.2 %) from areas like Eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal & Odisha to various destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, & Chennai areas.
To facilitate the movement of migrant labour from the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh & Odisha to the Metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru & Chennai etc, Indian Railways is operating Mail/Express Specials, Holiday Specials and Summer Special trains. All these trains are being operated as fully reserved trains keeping in view the Covid protocol. The booking for these trains is available to the traveling public through Passenger Reservation System (PRS) at the Reservation Counters and also through online mode by using e-ticketing system.
As on 18.06.2021, 983 Mail/Express and Holiday Specials (56% of the pre-Covid level) are being operated by Indian Railways. In addition, about 1309 Summer Specials have also been operated to facilitate the movement of the people wanting to return to the place of work. These Summer Specials provide connectivity primarily from states like Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Odisha & Assam to major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Bengaluru etc.
For the next 10 days (from 19.6.21 to 28.6.21) approximately 29.15 lakh passengers including migrant workers and other passengers have been booked by long distance mail express trains from areas like Eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal & Odisha to various destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, & Chennai areas.
The Zonal Railways are actively coordinating with various industry associations and business houses to ascertain the demand and facilitate the movement of the workers accordingly. The Summer Special trains are operating between different Origin Destination pairs like Gorakhpur-Mumbai, Bhagalpur-Mumbai, Bhubaneswar-Pune, Danapur-Pune, Barauni-Ahmedabad, Patna-Delhi, Samastipur-Mumbai, Sealdah-Delhi, Raxaul-Delhi, Saharsa-Delhi, Danapur-Secunderabad, Raxaul-Secunderabad, Patliputra-Bengaluru, Chapra-Mumbai, Guwahati-Bengaluru, Gorakhpur-Hyderabad, etc.