NEW DELHI, Apr 19: In view of the panic set in among the migrant labourers following “total curfew” imposed by the Delhi government on the national capital for a week from Monday night, the Indian Railways’ Northern Railway zone has Planned to deploy four additional special trains from New Delhi to Bihar over the next three days to cater to demand as migrants seek to head back to their home state.
The Railway ministry has urged people not to panic and said the trains won’t be stopped during the ongoing 6-day “total curfew” in Delhi.
Keen to avoid a situation like last year, the Indian Railways is adding additional summer special trains to cater to the rush of migrants heading back home, taking the current train service operations to around 70% of pre-Covid times.
“Today evening there was some speculation about the crowd coming to stations or rush building up. It is requested that all may avoid such reports as the reality is different… Rush and crowd happen when there is speculation that trains would not be available at all or will be stopped. There is no such situation now. Trains are not going to be stopped and I think the public knows about it. They know that if they don’t get to travel today, they can go the next day or later on. Even under the curfew guidelines, one is allowed to travel to the station with a valid ticket. There is nothing to panic about,” a railway ministry spokesperson said.
Northern Railways’ Delhi division, however, has stopped the sale of platform tickets with immediate effect.
Over the past week, the ministry has planned 69 additional ‘summer special trains’ to cater to the rush being reported across stations. Till April 30, the national transporter has planned 133 additional trains with 88 ‘summer specials’ and 45 ‘festival special’ trains.
According to the railway ministry’s data till Wednesday, the national carrier has approved a total of 9,622 special trains and at present, it is running an average of 7,745 trains as compared to an average of 11,283 trains during pre-Covid times. Out of these, a total of 5,387 suburban trains are currently deployed which is nearly 92% of pre-covid capacity with the maximum services operating in the Central Railway zone that caters to Maharashtra’s high populated cities including Mumbai and Pune.
According to the railways, these additional trains are for destinations with high demand such as Gorakhpur, Patna, Darbhanga, Varanasi, Guwahati, Barauni, Prayagraj, Bokaro, Ranchi and Lucknow.
Amid lockdown curbs being announced by states, with a heavy migrant population, like Maharashtra, several cities have reported an unusual rush of people across interstate bus stations and railway stations. The ministry has, however, maintained that the rush is a regular summer festival rush.
Last week, railway board chairman Suneet Sharma clarified that there were no plans to curtail passenger trains services. He added that the railways will continue to run trains as per the demand amid reports of migrant labourers rushing to stations due to fears of another lockdown situation.
(Manas Dasgupta)
