Bengaluru: The South Western Railway (SWR) zone has chugged out 3.02 lakh migrant workers back home to 17 Indian states in 209 Shramik special trains, an official said on Friday.
“Starting with the first Shramik special train being rolled out from the zone on May 3, the SWR has run 209 trains transporting 3.02 lakh migrant workers to their native destinations,” said a spokesperson of the railway zone.
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 (1.01 lakh), followed by Uttar Pradesh (70,161), Jharkhand (30,962), West Bengal (30,851), Odisha (21,461) and Rajasthan (9,309).
Returnees to other states included 9,136 to Assam, 7,085 to Madhya Pradesh, 5,704 to Tripura, 3,863 to Uttarakhand, 2,950 to Jammu and Kashmir, 3,090 to Manipur, 634 to Himachal Pradesh, 1,205 to Chhattisgarh, 1,496 to Kerala, 1,456 to Mizoram and 1,507 to Nagaland.
The highest number of trains went to Bihar (69), followed by Uttar Pradesh (49), Jharkhand and West Bengal (21 each), and others.
Five states, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Kerala, Mizoram, and Nagaland, received only one train each.
In association with some NGOs and other donors, the railway zone has arranged food for the returning migrants.
