Thousands of migrant workers affected by the lockdown have begun their journey home by special trains after a go-ahead from the Centre.

Three special trains, carrying 1,200 migrant workers each, will on Saturday night leave for Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Gujarat’s Ahmedabad and Surat stations, a senior official said.

While two trains will leave from Ahmedabad to Agra, another will depart from Surat to Behrampur in Odisha, said Ashwani Kumar, secretary to chief minister Vijay Rupani.

Several migrants from Rajasthan, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have already been granted permission to leave for their home states on buses, he said.

“A train from Surat will leave for Behrampur in Odisha, and two trains from Ahmedabad will leave for Agra on Saturday. Each train has a capacity of 1,200 passengers, and only those who have registered their names will be permitted to travel,” he said.

Kumar said the state government had appointed eight IAS and IPS officers each as nodal officers to coordinate the movement of migrant workers with the governments of other states.

Those who wish to return home will have to call helpline number 1077, he said.

First special train to Bihar

The first Shramik Special train to Bihar, carrying 1,187 migrant labourers, reached the Danapur railway station in Patna from Rajasthan’s Jaipur on Saturday afternoon after a 16-hour journey.

The 24-coach train left Jaipur at 10pm on Friday and reached the Danapur railway station around 2pm, chief public relations officer, East Central Railway, Hajipur, Rajesh Kumar told PTI.

The train ran non-stop, he said.

A screening of the passengers was conducted on arrival at the station by 20 medical teams.

Around 100 buses have been stationed at the Danapur railway station to send these people to their home districts, he said.

This is the first run of a special train to Bihar after the home ministry allowed the states to ferry migrants back home in buses.

Run at least 28 trains for migrants from Chhattisgarh: Baghel to Goyal

Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday urged railway minister Piyush Goyal to run at least 28 trains to fetch migrant labourers from the state stranded across the country due to the lockdown, officials said.

The railways started running Shramik Special trains from Labour Day to get stranded migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and others to their respective states.

In a letter to Goyal, Baghel hailed the Centre’s decision but sought that the facility be free of cost on humanitarian grounds, a public relations department official said.

Baghel said nearly 1.17 lakh labourers from the state were stranded in 21 states and four Union territories, and the number may increase significantly if students, tourists, etc. from the state are included.

‘Guest workers’ depart to Jharkhand from Kerala

A non-stop train carrying around 1,100 stranded “guest workers” from Kerala left for Hatia in Jharkhand on Saturday.

Four more trains are expected to leave with the workers from Tirur, Kozhikode, Ernakulam South and Aluva stations in the evening for Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.

The passengers are expected to reach Jharkand on Monday.

This is the second train which left with the guest workers, a day after around 1,100 migrant workers from Aluva in Kochi departed for Bhubaneswar in Odisha on Friday night.

Nadia handloom workers

About 260 migrant workers employed in handlooms of Shantipur in Bengal’s Nadia district have been sent home in Cooch Behar in special buses, Nadia zilla parishad president Rikta Kundu said on Saturday.

The district administration had begun the service on Wednesday and so far, 10 buses with migrant handloom workers have left for Cooch Behar, including two on Saturday. Only 26 people were seated in each bus to ensure social distancing, Kundu said.

While six buses had left for Cooch Behar on Wednesday, two each left on Thursday and Saturday, she said.

“North Bengal development minister Rabindranath Ghosh, who is also involved in the process, has asked us to send the workers in smaller numbers. Around 750 more handloom workers from Cooch Behar are waiting to return home,” Kundu said.

Fulia and Shantipur in Nadia are major centres of manufacture of saris. More than 90 per cent of the residents of these two areas are associated with the industry.

However, most of the workers are from Cooch Behar district, officials said.

The handlooms were shut following the imposition of the lockdown, rendering the workers jobless and restricted to their small rooms allocated by their owners, they said.

The migrant workers then appealed to their respective panchayat pradhans urging them to take up with district officials the matter of their return to their homes, the officials said.

Stranded Kashmiris, migrant labourers demand evacuation

Dozens of stranded Kashmiris and migrant labourers on Saturday assembled outside the divisional commissioner office in Jammu and demanded early evacuation to their home, officials said.

The protesters alleged that the administration was not paying heed to their pleas and shuttling them from one office to another for redressal of their grievances.

All of the protesters dispersed later, the officials said.

“We have been stranded here for the past 42 days and there is no word from the government of our evacuation,” Farooq Ahmad Shah, a resident of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, said.

He claimed that thousands of people from Kashmir, including labourers and patients, were stranded in Jammu and living a miserable life without proper food and shelter.

“Police chase us when we visit the civil secretariat, while authorities in the deputy commissioner’s office demand that we visit them for movement passes,' he said, demanding deployment of SRTC vehicles for their early transportation to the Kashmir Valley.

A group of migrant labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab also asked transport facility for their return journey to their homes without further delay.

Jharkhand policeman killed in crash

A policeman died and four other security personnel suffered minor injuries when their van overturned in Ramgarh district while they were escorting a bus carrying returning migrants from Telangana to Chatra in the wee hours of Saturday, police said.

The Ramgarh superintendent of police, Prabhat Kumar, told PTI that another escort van was immediately provided as the bus continued its onward journey.

Prabhat said the dead has been identified as Dinesh Kumar.

Chief minister Hemant Soren said the administration was stood with the policeman’s family in this hour of grief.

In a tweet, Soren said Dinesh was escorting the bus of migrant workers when his van met with an accident.

Prabhat said that accident occurred on NH-33 under Ramgarh town police station, killing the policeman on the spot.

He said the injured policemen were given first aid at the Sadar hospital before being discharged.

The police van was escorting the bus carrying migrant labourers after they reached Hatia railway station, on the outskirts of Ranchi, by a special train from Telangana on Friday night.

The Jharkhand director general of police, M.V Rao, tweeted: “Constable Dinesh Kumar aged 38 of #ChatraPolice was driving vehicle escorting #MigrantWorkers bus. Escort vehicle met with an accident at 0230 am last night. Dinesh died. We lost a dear colleague #FightAgainstCorona. My tributes to Dinesh. @JharkhandPolice stands with his family.'

Portal for Himachal residents

The Himachal Pradesh government, in a bid to bring back the state’s residents stuck elsewhere due to the coronavirus lockdown, on Saturday asked them to register on its online portal.

The government decided to bring back residents stranded in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali from Sunday, an official spokesperson said.