Why were adequate Shramik specials not run, asks Kharge

Veteran Congress leader and former Union Minister Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday hit out at the Union government for handling the exodus of migrants workers in a shoddy way during the lockdown and said Railways Minister Piyush Goyal should resign from the post for his poor handling of Shramik special trains.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Mr. Kharge, who has served as the Railway Minister, said Indian Railways has 13,000 trains and 2.3 crore people commute daily in trains across the country. Instead of operating an adequate number of Shramik trains, the Railways operated only a few for ferrying stranded migrants to their homes. “The Railways had never witnessed such a mess before,” he said.

Because of inept handling of the Railways, many migrants lost their lives walking long distances. In Aurangabad, 16 migrant labourers were crushed to death while they were sleeping on railways tracks. All migrants labourers could have been ferried to their natives places before the announcement of the lockdown, he said.

The government was deaf towards difficulties faced by migrants. Many trains reached destinations several hours later and this resulted in chaos at railway stations. The Indian Railways had lost its independent powers under the Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi-led government. In fact, the government has scrapped separate Railway budget and merged it with the Union budget, he pointed out.

Noting that the Centre’s ₹20 lakh crore had benefited no one so far, Mr. Kharge said the revival of the economy was possible only by putting the money into the hands of the people. The negative growth rate in manufacturing and construction industry would slow down the economic growth rate in the future, he said.

Many people died because of hunger and poor shelter facilities provided by the government. Mr. Kharge said both the State and Union governments had failed in handling the coronavirus pandemic. He addressed the press conference following instructions from the party high command.