Bengaluru, Jun 18 (IANS): The South Western Railway (SWR) zone has chugged out 3.5 lakh migrant workers back home to 17 Indian states in 240 Shramik Special trains, an official said on Thursday.

Starting with the first Shramik Special train being rolled out from the zone on May 3, the SWR has run 240 trains transporting 3.5 lakh migrant workers to their native destinations," said a railway zone official.

SWR operated the specials everyday from May 3, except two days, on May 6 and 7. It took 13 days to transport the first 1 lakh passengers and another six days for the next one lakh.

The special trains for the migrants left from 12 SWR stations, namely, KSR Bengaluru, Bengaluru Cantonment, Chikka Banavara, Malur, Mysuru - Ashokapuram, Kabakaputtur, Hassan, Hubballi, Hosapete, Ballari, Koppal, and Hosur in Tamil Nadu.

Among the 17 states to which the migrants travelled, the highest number went to Bihar (1.13 lakh), followed by Uttar Pradesh (75,248), West Bengal (40,395), Jharkhand (30,962), Odisha (24,357) and Assam (24,881).

Returnees to other states included 10,837 to Rajasthan, 7,085 to Madhya Pradesh, 5,704 to Tripura, 3,863 to Uttarakhand, 2,950 to Jammu & Kashmir, 3,090 to Manipur, 634 to Himachal Pradesh, 2,557 to Chhattisgarh, 1,496 to Kerala, 1,456 to Mizoram and 1,507 to Nagaland.

The highest number of trains went to Bihar (77), followed by Uttar Pradesh (52), and West Bengal (27). Four states - Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Mizoram, and Nagaland, received only one train each.

In association with some NGOs and other donors, the railway zone arranged food for the returning migrants.