Sellundar Ram (28 years) with his wife and their three children were waiting in the long queue at Coimbatore Railway Junction on Friday.
Sellundar Ram is working in Coimbatore for the last 10 years fixing tiles in buildings. With the spread of COVID-19 and lockdown, he wants to return to his hometown and come back after the situation turns to normalcy. He is confident of finding work here again after a couple of months.
He is among the 1,140 workers who had boarded the special train on Friday that chugged out of the railway station at about 8.20 p.m. All the passengers were labourers from Bihar who were working across Coimbatore district in different jobs. The train was bound to Saharsa Junction in Bihar.
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They were working in Pollachi, Kinathukadavu, Perur and some areas of Coimbatore city. They had all registered online their willingness to go back to their hometowns. They were given tokens and food for Friday night. They were also provided masks and soap and their bags were sprayed with disinfectants.
For about two hours, Revenue Department officials verified their names and helped them board the train.
Nearly 20,000 workers would be returning to Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh from Coimbatore district in the next one week.
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The special train, arranged by the State Governments of Tamil Nadu and Bihar and the Railways, would reach the destination by Sunday evening (approximately 48 hours). A few workers could not board the train as their names were missing in the list with the officials or their train was scheduled for Saturday. While one train left on Friday evening, another would leave for Bihar on Saturday morning.
The Tamil Nadu government was meeting the ticket cost of the workers who were returning to their home States.
A batch of workers could not take the train to Odisha from here on Thursday night because of a High Court order in that State. The order was quashed on Friday and arrangements were on to help those workers, too, to go home.
Coimbatore Collector K. Rajamani told reporters on Friday that workers who were not employed with any specific industry or contractor and had expressed willingness to go were supported to return to their hometowns. Many workers were staying back as the State government had relaxed the lockdown norms and industries had commenced operations.
About 6,500 workers would return to Bihar and an equal number to Odisha. About 2,000 workers would go back to Uttar Pradesh and equal numbers to Jharkhand and Assam. He also said the district administration would ensure that the workers were brought to the railway junction maintaining personal distancing and other precautionary measures.
Officials at Salem Division of the Southern Railway said that the 24 coaches comprised 18 sleeper coaches, four unreserved coaches and two Seating-cum-Luggage Rake coaches.
To ensure personal distancing among the passengers, only 52 passengers were allowed in the sleeper coaches and 28 passengers in the unreserved coaches. All the coaches were disinfected prior to the operation.
While food was provided by the State government to the workers prior to boarding the train, railway staff would provide the food for them as per requirements during the journey.
Nearly 100 police personnel from Coimbatore City Police were deployed in and around the railway station premises on Friday, a police officer said. In addition, personnel from the Government Railway Police and Railway Protection Force also monitored the situation.
A total of five teams from the Health Department checked for COVID-19 symptoms among the migrant workers.