Over 3.2 mln passengers travel in trains in India in 7 days as migrant workers head to cities

Source: Xinhua| 2021-06-19 22:56:25|Editor: huaxia
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NEW DELHI, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Ministry of Railways said on Saturday that it was helping to bring back migrant workers as the cities gradually started to ease COVID-19 restrictions.

From June 11 to June 17, approximately 3.25 million passengers including migrant workers travelled by long-distance mail express trains, with average occupancy of trains being 110.2 percent, from areas like eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha to various destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Chennai, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said for the next 10 days from June 19 to June 28, approximately 2.91 million passengers including migrant workers have booked long distance trains to reach these places.

To facilitate the movement of migrant laborers to return to their places of work, the Railways Ministry is operating special trains.

"The zonal railways are actively coordinating with various industry associations and business houses to ascertain the demand and facilitate the movement of the workers accordingly," it said.

The ongoing pandemic has massively hit the economic activities in the country and forced tens of millions of migrant workers to leave cities in wake of the COVID-19 restrictions.

The health ministry said on Saturday morning that India recorded 60,753 new COVID-19 cases and 1,647 more deaths, bringing the case tally to 29,823,546 and the death toll to 385,137. Enditem

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