Mumbai: Amid the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, a total of 9.82 lakh migrant workers have been transported to their home states from Maharashtra till now by 696 Shramik Special' trains, Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said on Wednesday.
Most of these trains were operated by the Railways for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
An official statement quoted Deshmukh as saying that 374 trains were sent to Uttar Pradesh, while 169, 33, 30, 6 and 13 services were operated for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Odisha, respectively.
To Rajasthan, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, 15, 33 and 6 trains were plied, respectively, he added.
Deshmukh said that from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) and Panvel railway stations, 111, 112 and 42 trains, respectively, ferried migrant workers to their native states.
Among other stations, from Borivali, Bandra Terminus, Thane, Pune, Aurangabad, Kolhapur and Nagpur, 52, 58, 28, 69, 12, 23 and 14 trains were operated, he added.
In all, so far 9.82 lakh stranded migrant workers have been ferried to their home states from Maharashtra onboard these Shramik Special trains, which are being opearted in the country since early May, Deshmukh added.
Trains were arranged from various stations in Maharashtra from Tuesday evening for taking migrant workers and other stranded people to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states, a Government Railway Police (GRP) official said.
These included a train carrying 1,547 migrants which left for Ajmer in Rajasthan from the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in suburban Kurla at 9.10 am on Wednesday, he said.
On Wednesday morning, there were huge crowds of migrant workers and others stranded people at the Sun City ground in neighbouring Palghar district and at LTT in Mumbai.
Earlier, around Tuesday midnight, hundreds of people gathered at Nagpada junction in south Mumbai, demanding that trains be arranged to take them to their native places.
The crowd later dispersed following appeals from police and local leaders, another official said.
On Tuesday night, huge crowds of migrant labourers, including women and children, were seen outside major railway stations like CSMT in south Mumbai, LTT, Bandra, Borivali in the suburbs and Panvel in neighbouring Navi Mumbai to board the Shramik Special trains.
