Around 10000 migrant workers are scheduled to go back to their home states from Chandigarh during next one week.
A special shramik train carrying 1237 passengers departed from Chandigarh Railway Station on Friday for Motihari in Bihar while seven more trains are scheduled to run from Chandigarh till May 30 to take the migrant workers to their home state.
As on May 22, a total of 24334 migrant workers have returned to their home states from special shramik trains while 1977 stranded persons have returned to their hometowns by buses from Chandigarh. The first shramik train from Chandigarh ran on May 10 for Gonda in Uttar Pradesh
“A total of about 3500 persons were contacted on their phone for the train to Motihari and 1549 persons gave their consent but finally 1237 persons turned up at the Holding Centre in CCET, Sector 26 on Friday. Though capacity of the train was 1600 but due to poor response from the migrant labours who registered for moving out from Chandigarh, it went with lesser capacity,” said Yashpal Garg, Secretary Social Welfare, who is the incharge of the entire process in UT Chandigarh.
Giving details of train scheduled till May 30, he said that a train is scheduled to leave for Gaya (Bihar) and Dhanbad (Jharkhand) on May 23, Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh on May 24, Lucknow in UP on May 26, Sultanpur in UP on May 27, Madhapura in Bihar on May 28 (on route Ara, Danapur, Khagaria), Jounpur in Uttar Pradesh on May 29 and Chapra (Saran) in Bihar with stoppage at Siwan on May 30.
For the train scheduled to leave for Bihar on Saturday, a total of 3403 persons have been contacted and out of them total 1602 have given their consent for taking the train, he said.
“The stranded persons were allowed to register for movement either through helpline or website of the Chandigarh Administration upto May 13. One day before the scheduled departure of the train, telephone calls are made to registered persons asking them to reach the holding centre for medical screening and thereafter journey through special train. It has been observed that after opening of industrial and commercial units, a considerable number of migrant labour is not interested to move out,” Garg added.
Garg also said that a total of 14 migrant labours of Sikkim were also sent through a special shramik Train. The Chandigarh Administration also co-ordinated journey of 239 migrant Labours of Sikkim from other states like Punjab, Himachal and Uttarakhand by the same shramik train destined to New Jalpaigudi Station. All these 253 persons will reach Sikkim by buses from New Jalpaigudi Railway Station, he said.
A day before, a total of 138 migrant labours of Chhattisgarh were sent to Dehradun by special buses. From Dehradun their journey has been arranged through a shramik train to Chhattisgarh scheduled for May 22.
