South Central Railway braced itself up to run five or more migrant special trains past midnight of Thursday or early Friday morning, having run seven more trains — four from Telangana and three from Andhra Pradesh — in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday towards Bihar and Jharkhand carrying more than 7,000 passengers overall.
All the travellers were registered by the TS and AP governments and thermally screened before being brought to the railway stations in buses amid tight security. Top railway officials, who have been refusing to come on record ever since the operations had begun, informed on Thursday that the special ‘Shramik’ specials of 24 non-AC sleeper class coaches were run with each carrying about 1,200 passengers each.
Two trains started their journey from Ghatkesar towards Chapra in Bihar and Katia in Uttarakhand; two more trains began their journey from Lingampalli towards Bhagalpur in Bihar and Dhanbhad in Jharkhand — both stations are located in the eastern and western suburbs of the twin cities.
From the AP side, the trains were run from Chittoor towards Saharsa, from Nellore towards Bharauni and from Nidadavolu towards Dharabanga, all in Bihar. All these migrant special trains will be running non-stop and could take up to 24 hours and more to reach their respective destinations.
Senior railway officials stated that the passengers were provided with food and drinking water by the States before start of the journey while the railways will take care of their needs during the trip. Halts for these trains will be only when crossing divisions or zones when the running railway staff including loco-pilots, travelling ticket examiners, sanitation personnel and security persons will be replaced.
Both State governments have paid up for the cost of travel, they added. It is also learnt that in the reverse direction, a train from Maharastra had arrived in Anantapur bringing labour from there, but this was arranged by the Western Railway. Otherwise, for now the SCR trains are returning empty in the return journey from States up North.
