A passenger train carrying 1,200 migrant labourers set off from Kerala’s Aluwa Railway Station to Bhubaneswar in Orissa late Friday evening. This is the first passenger train to operate in the State during the last 35 days. The details of the train and the destination were announced only by Friday noon.
The migrant labourers mainly working in the plywood factories in Perumbavoor and surrounding areas who had registered with the revenue officials were screened by the department of health in the labour camps itself and were transported to the railway station in sanitised buses which were guarded by the police. The railway officials had made elaborate arrangements at Aluwa railway station as part of social distancing norms and medical examination of the labourers. The food for the passengers have been arranged by the Railways.
A senior official of Southern Railway told The Pioneer that only labourers from Orissa are being allowed to travel in this train. “We will operate four or five trains on Saturday for the benefit of migrant workers who are from Assam and Bengal. All these trains are exclusively for the migrant workers who are employed in Kerala,” said the official.
Kerala Government officials are finalising the details of the migrant labourers who would be boarding the trains to be operated from the State on Saturday and Sunday.