Table of Contents
SHRAMIK TRAINS
- Until Monday, 3,274 Shramik Specials were run to transport more than 44 lakh passengers; over 1 crore water bottles and 74 lakh free meals were distributed, the Railways said in a statement.
PROBLEMS
- Delayed running of these trains
- shortage of food and water on board continue to plague the Railways
- POOR FACILITY AND NO SOCIAL DISTANCING
- DEATHS
RAILWAY
- “The deaths are very unfortunate, but all the three people concerned were seriously ill,” said a senior official.
- According to the railways, a Shramik train from Mumbai reached Manduadih, Varanasi, Wednesday with two dead passengers. While 30-year-old Dashrath Prajapati was physically challenged and was suffering from kidney disease, 63-year-old Ram Ratan Gaud “was fighting with many illnesses”.
- Another passenger, Uresh Khatun, a resident of Katihar in Bihar, also died on a Shramik special train that was coming from Surat. She had a heart surgery on 22 March, and a pacemaker was installed, Railways said.
RAILWAYS
- As railways came under criticism for diverting Shramik trains to circumvent route congestion, it Tuesday officially notified running of trains on diverted paths and called it route “rationalisation”.
- “A train can have multiple routes to reach from point A to point B… Under normal circumstances, it uses the shortest route, but if there is piling up of trains, etc. it can use an alternative route to reach the same destination,” another senior official said.
- These trains are working without a fixed timetable. It is not like ordinary times when passengers would buy tickets, and come to the station, and the train would depart,” he said. “Right now, the states bring the passengers, who have to be examined before boarding… Nobody gets to know if the passengers are being brought late by the state, these are the kind of things that lead to delays and piling up.