COVID-19 fear: Nearly a lakh migrants from Northeast reach home by trains

Nearly one lakh people, including migrant workers and students, have reached their homes in the Northeastern states by 63 Shramik Special trains so far.

The Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR), which covers parts of Bihar, Bengal, and the Northeast on Saturday said another 20 such trains will arrive soon with people stranded in the rest of the country.

"Another 22 Shramik Special trains have originated from various Northeastern states under the jurisdiction of NFR to carry stranded people from these states to their native places," NFR chief public relations officer, Subhanan Chanda said in a statement.

More than 320 trains arrived in Bihar areas under NFR till today and about 10 such trains will be arriving in various stations of North Bengal by today. All these Shramik Special trains helped about five lakhs stranded people to reach their home states during the lock-down period till today," he said.

In NFR areas under Katihar division of Bihar, trains arrived at stations like Katihar, Purnea, Araria, and Kishanganj. About 20 more Shramik Special trains will be arriving in these stations in the next two days by carrying stranded people of Bihar from various locations of our country.

Most of these trains originated from stations in Maharastra, Gujarat, and Punjab.

He said Indian Railways has run more than 3,840 Shramik Special trains so far, carrying over 52 lakh passengers. "Nearly 60% of the trains originated from Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Punjab, and nearly 80% of trains are mainly going towards various districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Most of the destinations in Uttar Pradesh are around Lucknow - Gorakhpur sector and in Bihar around Patna," said the statement.

Assam had earlier send those not showing any symptom to home quarantine but the Cabinet recently decided to put all into institutional quarantine keeping in mind the spike in COVID-19 positive cases. Assam's COVID-19 positive cases touched 1,100 with the detection of 43 cases on Saturday.

Other states in the Northeast have also decided to put all those coming from the rest of the country into home quarantine.