Chandigarh admn scraps Shramik train project due to dearth of takers

Since May 23, several special trains have left with vacant seats.

After the Shramik Special Train headed to Patna on Friday left with 554 empty seats, despite efforts to contact stranded migrants in the city, the UT administration has decided to do away with the Shramik train project for now.

Children catch a lunch break while waiting for screening before boarding the Shramik Special train, at Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology in Sector 26 on Friday. (Ravi Kumar/HT)

The administration had planned to run another Shramik train to Patna on Monday. However, seeing the dismal response, the plan has been scrapped.

The Shramik train on Friday left at 1pm with 1,046 passengers against a capacity of 1,600.

“Since Wednesday, more than 11,000 registered persons were contacted through telephone calls and SMSes for the Friday train. Station house officers (SHOs) of the various police stations were also requested to give details about stranded migrants in their areas. Some NGOs were also asked to provide this information,” a UT official said, not wishing to be named.

However, since industrial and commercial units have resumed operations, a considerable number of workers are now not interested in going back, he added.

It was on May 23 when the Shramik train first saw vacant seats. It had left for Gaya in Bihar and Dhanbad in Jharkhand. Since then, number of passengers has been dwindling. As many as 39,795 migrants have been sent to their home states via Shramik trains, while another 4,633 have been transported by buses.