West Bengal, where the number of migrants is quite high, has so far approved only 19 shramik trains. Bihar is not allowing more than 50 trains per day

The railway minister has been appealing to the state governments to approve other trains for the last few days so that remaining shramik workers can be transported to their destinations. He has particularly appealed to Rajasthan, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

On behalf of the Ministry of Railways, it has been said that consent between two states is necessary for running shramik special trains. For example, a shramik train going from West Bengal to Gujarat and Gujarat to West Bengal requires the consent of both the states.

But it is a matter of regret that some states are not approving shramik trains carrying their migrants, due to which many migrant laborers are forced to walk on the roads, while many laborers are moving their vehicles from unsafe vehicles like trucks loaded with goods States are forced to leave. In the midst of all this, social distancing is also not being followed, which is very important at the moment.

According to the Railway Ministry, so far Uttar Pradesh is the only state which has allowed the maximum number of trains to enter its state. Uttar Pradesh has so far approved 800 labor trains to enter the state.

On the other hand, West Bengal, where the number of migrants is quite high, has so far approved only 19 shramik trains.  Bihar is not allowing more than 50 trains per day while the requirement is of 200 trains per day.

Odisha has also postponed trains in coastal areas due to the cyclone.

There are many other states where a large number of shramiks are living, but despite this, they have allowed very few trains till now. Like Chhattisgarh has approved only 19 trains, Rajasthan has approved only 33 trains and Jharkhand has approved only 72 trains.

The Shramik train is a special train started on special request. These have been started to send migrant laborers to their homes/states. The central government has decided to start these trains after seeing the demand of the state government and the performance of the workers. This is the specialty of these trains, these trains started during the time of Corona are not meant to serve everyone in public. It is the responsibility of the state government to mark the registered laborers in their state, screening them and sending them to the destination by train.

The controversy started with the announcement of the start of shramik train and the dispute started by the interim president of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi claimed that the central government was taking money to bring the migrants home. Many media houses also redeemed this false and false news.

In fact, 85% of the cost incurred to send laborers home is being borne by the Central Government (Railways) and 15% is borne by the State Government. It is up to the state government to give this money from its government fund or collect it through any NGO or any other means. The Central Government and Railways are not directly charging the passengers and the payment of that 15% is left to the State Government.