South Central Railway (SCR), before the break of dawn, ran two more migrant special trains, one from Telangana and another from Andhra Pradesh, carrying over 2,000 passengers towards Bihar and Maharashtra, respectively, early on Tuesday.
Both the trains started almost simultaneously at about 3.30 a.m. — from Rayanapadu station near Vijayawada (AP) with about 1,200 passengers towards Chandrapur in Maharashtra and another train started from Ghatkesar station on the outskirts of Hyderabad carrying up to 1,240 passengers towards Khagaria in Bihar.
Both were non-stop trains with halts only for railway personnel to change shifts on the way and senior railway officials informed that the Maharashtra-bound train had already reached its destination having covered 900 km while the train towards Bihar has to traverse more than 2,000 km and could be reaching late in the night or early hours.
The governments of AP and TS have picked up the ticket costs for the travel, identified the passengers, thermal screened them and brought them to the departing stations in buses under police escort. “Government officials including police brought them to our stations in buses. They were also provided with food and drinking water. We will take care of their food needs during the journey,” they said, pleading anonymity.
In fact, top SCR officials maintained total silence about the trains movement hours after they had departed even as Government officials were tweeting videos and photos! “We do not want people to unnecessarily converge at our stations expecting trains. These are services contracted for the States and paid by them,” maintained senior railway officials.
Railway security personnel at the stations ensured that just about 50 persons are accommodated in each sleeper class coach to maintain social distance. Apparently, it costs railways about ₹15 lakh to run such non-AC trains and collecting the ‘nominal’ sleeper class fare with ₹50 extra will fetch upto ₹ 13 lakh depending on the distance these special trains are travelling.
SCR had earlier run the country’s first migrant special from Lingampally station in the capital suburbs towards Hatia in Jharkhand on May Day transporting about 1,225 passengers. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has also requested General Manager Gajanan Mallya to run up to 40 special trains daily to transport labour towards Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and so on.
