ECoR making all efforts to enable migrant workers to reach home: Official

The East Coast Railways (ECoR) Monday assured all migrant workers including those hailing from Odisha and stranded in different parts of the country due to lockdown, that efforts are being made to enable them to travel back to their native states.

"Efforts are being made to ensure that all of them are able to travel to their home states at the earliest from railway station head on mainline which is close to their existing location with the help of district administrations," a statement issued by the ECoR said.

It said that in a move to provide benefit all those persons who have been waiting to travel through trains for a long time but were unable to travel due to lockdown, Indian Railways is running 230 Special trains daily in addition to about 200 more Shramik Special Trains daily from different parts of the country to the destination of stranded passengers.

"... Of the 201 Shramik Special Trains, ECoR has received 101 Shramik Special Trains in its jurisdiction," said ECoR chief public relations officer J P Mishra.

He said 12 Shramik Special Trains were sent from ECoR jurisdiction towards different places including one from Sambalpur and another from Bhubaneswar between May 3 and May 24.

Of the 101 Shramik special trains, almost half of them were received from Gujrat. Special Shramik Trains have also been received from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Delhi and Maharastra, he said.

While transporting people, ECoR has been maintaining standard social distancing guidelines when receiving or sending stranded passengers at stations in ECoR jurisdiction by making queues and making circles marked all along the platforms.