Home ministry to take call on passenger trains to transport migrants soon

According to media reports, Indian Railways has lined up a plan to run at least 400 trains for the movement of stranded labourers across the country

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is likely to take a decision on the movement of migrant labourers on train from various states.

According to media reports, the Indian Railways has now lined up a plan to run at least 400 trains for the movement of stranded migrant labourers across the country. Though the national transporter is still in denial mode, a notification from the ministry regarding the Railways roadmap is expected this week.

On Wednesday, a government notification had indicated that stranded migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists and students will be allowed to travel back to their home states. However, inter-state movements was allowed only on buses as there was no clear roadmap on restart train and airline services.

Several railways sources said that there was no decision so far regarding restarting passenger trains. 

“We have a clear protocol in place on how our operations should be, once the passenger services are restarted. Some of the proposals that are under consideration include running of only non-air conditioned trains,” said a source close to the development. 

Though the transportation of migrants was cleared, it was based on the condition that they be kept on home or institutional quarantine for some time. States such as Maharasthra, Rajasthan and Kerala had been demanding for long-distance trains to evacuate migrant workers.

According to media reports, Railways will operate some 400 special trains, based on a master plan. This may be scaled up to 1,000. These non-AC trains will run based on strict protocols on maintaining social distancing.

During the lockdown, the national transporter had been giving additional focus on movement of essentials. The loading, transportation and unloading of these commodities has been in full swing during the lockdown period. Indian Railways has also identified routes for special parcel trains since the start of the lockdown for perishable commodities like fruits, vegetables, dairy products and seeds for agriculture purpose. So far in April, the IR loaded around 6.04 million tonnes (MT) of food grains, flours and pulses, up 143 per cent from 2.49 MT during the April 1-29 period in 2019.

Interestingly, the plan by the railways to convert coaches into isolation wards was facing heat from government circles only, as the heat wave may cause further problems for patients during summer. The national transporter has so far converted 5,000 coaches with 80,000 beds as isolation centres and has also lined up plan to convert another 20,000. An official said so far none of the 5,000 coaches are being used for isolation and were only converted as part of a contingency plan. They will be used only once the hospitals are full.