Starting with the first Shramik Special Train being rolled out from the Zone on 3rd May 2020, South Western Railway has run 229 Shramik special trains carrying 3.32 lakh migrant workers to their native destinations. While the Zone transported the first one lakh passengers in 13 days, the next one lakh passengers were transported in just 6 days. Shramik specials were run every day from 3rd May 2020 till date except for two days on 6th and 7th May 2020. Today one more Shramik Special is scheduled to leave from Bengaluru to Guwahati later tonight.
SWR is going all out to arrange for trains as per the demand of the State Govt. to all parts of the country so that migrant workers can reach their hometowns. Shramik Special trains have been run from Karnataka to 17 states in the country. The maximum number of trains were run towards Bihar i.e. 73 trains carrying 1.07 lakh passengers followed by 51 trains to Uttar Pradesh carrying 73,498 passengers.
SWR has run Shramik Specials from Bengaluru (KSR Bengaluru, Bengaluru Cant., Chikbanawar, Malur) Mysuru (Ashokapuram, Kabakaputtur, Hassan) Hubballi, Hubballi (Hosapete, Bellari, Koppal) and from Hosur in Tamil Nadu. Details of trains run so far are as below;
Sl. No. State No. of Trains No. of Passengers
1 Bihar 73 1,07,470
2 Uttar Pradesh 51 73,498
3 West Bengal 27 40,395
4 Jharkhand 21 30,962
5 Odisha 16 24,357
6 Assam 10 14,363
7 Rajasthan 8 10,837
8 Madhya Pradesh 5 7,085
9 Tripura 4 5,704
10 Uttarakhand 3 3,863
11 Jammu & Kashmir 3 2,950
12 Manipur 2 3,090
13 Chhattisgarh 2 2,557
14 Himachal Pradesh 1 643
15 Kerala 1 1,496
16 Mizoram 1 1,456
17 Nagaland 1 1,507
Total 227 33,22,33
Bengaluru Division has run 194 Shramik Specials so far carrying 2.84 lakh passengers. Hubballi Division has run 21 Shramik Special carrying 30,580 passengers and Mysuru Division has run 12 Shramik Specials ferrying 16,974 passengers.
SWR is transporting passengers to their destination as per the demand of State Government with proper protocol and the receiving State Government is ready to accept them. These special trains are being run from point to point with no stoppages en-route. The State Government is arranging to bring passengers of Shramik Special trains to the stations through BMTC Buses as per the protocol.
Care is being taken to ensure social distancing, wearing masks and sanitizing of hands and making regular announcements to caution the passengers for prevention and spread of Covid-19 virus before departure from stations. Hand Sanitizer along with liquid soap has been provided in all coaches to protect against spread of Covid-19 Virus. Railway is also ensuring complete sanitization of all coaches before boarding of special train by the passengers.
Special Trains are departing the Stations only after all the passengers are medically examined by the Government of Karnataka and issued a medical certificate. Thermal screening is again done by Railway Medical Teams at the stations. None of the passengers were detected with high temperature. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) team is escorting the trains and ensuring social distancing. Details of passengers, coach-wise with address and mobile Nos. have been obtained. Details have been digitized and stored for contact tracing in future, if required.
