Hyderabad, May 20 (IANS): Telangana has so far transported over one lakh migrant workers to their home states by 74 trains. Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar on Wednesday said that 1,01,146 passengers were transported by Shramik Special trains in 20 days.
The maximum number of 26 trains were operated to Bihar while 14 trains were operated to Uttar Pradesh. The authorities also operated 11 trains to Jharkhand, 7 to Madhya Pradesh, 5 to Rajasthan, 4 to Orissa, 2 each to Chhattisgarh and North East and one each to Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Punjab.
In fact, the first Shramik Special train in the country was operated from Telangana on May 1. The train from Lingampalli near Hyderabad carried 1,225 migrants to Hatia in Jharkhand.
Telangana government paid Rs 8.5 crore to the railways towards the payment of fare of all the migrant workers.
Since getting consent of the receiving states has been a major problem in sending more stranded persons, the state government raised this issue with the Ministry of Home Affairs. Accordingly, the MHA has made the consent of receiving state not compulsory, the chief secretary noted.
At a meeting to review the movement of trains for the stranded persons from Telangana to other states, Somesh Kumar congratulated all the officers for achieving major milestone of transportation of one lakh passengers without any incident.
He directed the officials to make arrangements for further movement of stranded persons by trains.
The state government received appreciation from various states and passengers for making foolproof logistic arrangements for safe transportation of the passengers. He observed that while the first train for transporting migrant labourers left the state, the state also received the first train with labourers from Bihar as reverse migration for working in the state.
The nodal team, district collectors of Ranga Reddy, Medchal Malkajgiri, commissioners of police of Cyberabad, Hyderabad and Rachakonda, railways and other departments were involved in the task of sending back the stranded persons. He appreciated all the departments for working as a team and arranging logistics in a systematic manner.
The state government enrolled the passengers using IT apps and then selected persons were picked up by arranging buses and they were ferried to the railway stations. They were provided food and water.