More than 800 workers head home to UP from Nashik on special train

On Friday, the government allowed the railways to run special trains to ferry students, migrant workers stranded in various parts of the country due to nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus.

More than 800 workers from Uttar Pradesh who were stranded in Nashik in Maharashtra, boarded a special train for Lucknow on Saturday, UP’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi

Migrants who returned from Jaipur by Shramik Special train stand in a queue to board the bus towards their native places at Danapur railway station, during a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, in Patna. (ANI)

“The first special train for Uttar Pradesh has started from Nashik (Maharashtra) today morning & around 845 labourers and workers have boarded the train. They will reach Lucknow tomorrow,” Awasthi said according to ANI.

On Friday, the government allowed the railways to run special trains to ferry students, migrant workers stranded in various parts of the country due to nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus.

The decision to allow special trains came following the requests of several states to evacuate migrant workers. Earlier this week, the Union home ministry while relaxing the guidelines, allowed the evacuation of stranded people only by buses.

On Thursday, the Uttar Pradesh government had said that it would launch a massive evacuation drive to bring back migrant workers from Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan in the next few days.

Awasthi had then said that chief minister Yogi Adityanath had directed senior officers to prepare a plan to evacuate migrant workers from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan who have been stranded due to the lockdown.