The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader also said that the troubles of the hapless workers grew manifold, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, as their employers did not implement the provisions of the existing Inter State Migrant Labour Act, 1979.
Sule, citing Railway Ministry documents, said the largest number of Shramik Special trains -- 1033 -- were operated from Gujarat, followed by Maharashtra (817) and Punjab (429).
Railway traffic has dropped 32 per cent to 99.86 mt between April 1 and May 14, compared to the same time last year, while its revenue, too, dipped 41 per cent to Rs 9,094.38 crore.
The accident took place at Kolwan village around 3.30 am when the bus was on way from Solapur to Nagpur railway station where the labourers were supposed to board a Shramik Special train to reach their native places in Jharkhand, Additional Superintendent of Police Noorul Hasan said.
While in a statement issued earlier, the Railways had said that these trains will be fully non-air conditioned, on Wednesday it said that these will have both AC and non-AC classes and fully reserved coaches.
The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.
'The government there at one point did not even permit migrant labourers to return...we do not want to say anything against anyone but the situation there was not handled properly'
Passengers who are disallowed from travelling on trains because of symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus will also receive full refund for their tickets, the railways has said.
The apex court, which passed interim directions, said all migrant workers who are stranded at various places shall be provided food by concerned states and Union Territories (UTs) at places which shall be publicised and notified to them for the period they are waiting for their turn to board a train or a bus.
Shah said not allowing trains to reach West Bengal is "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, SK Kaul and MR Shah took note of the submissions of the Centre and state governments on steps taken so far to mitigate the miseries of the migrant workers stranded across the country during the Covid-19 lockdown.
'Our train was moving in all the wrong directions and went to Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha'
Ferrying migrant workers back to their states would be the largest special service by any railway network in the world in one go. Here's how the transporter manages it.
The first two coaches that rolled out from the Railway Coach Factory in Kapurthala also have fixtures coated with titanium dioxide and the provision for plasma air equipment in AC ducts to sterilise interiors using ionised air. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal also indicated that the new coaches could be the new normal.
The four-and-a-half-year-old son of Bihari migrants based in Delhi died at the railway station in Muzaffarpur on arrival by a 'Shramik Special' train, while his father desperately hunted for some milk he believed will save his child.
It said it will also allow reservation of reserved tickets from common service centres (CSC) and through ticketing agents with effect from Friday. The zonal railways have been instructed to decide and notify opening of reservation counters as per local needs and conditions, the order stated.
For many the resumption of trains is a big boon, but some say it doesn't come without confusion and worries
A day after opposition parties, including the Congress launched a scathing attack against the Union government and the railways for charging money from migrants for the travel, sources in the railways said the national transporter is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service for the special trains, and it has run 67 such trains carrying around 67,000 stranded migrants since May 1--- incurring an expenditure of over Rs 50 crore.
'They say government is doing so much but ham to ab bhi yahi hain'
Around 275,000 migrant labourers and their family members have returned to the state. According to the state government, this number could exceed 1 million by the end of this month. As the NDA government in Bihar is scheduled to face polls at the end of this year, providing livelihoods to these people is on the top Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's agenda.
At a time when finding out who is paying for labourers' train tickets is a task for Sherlock Holmes, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand government has flown in stranded workers from Ladakh, and is probably the only state that has tried to give 'migrant workers' a modicum of respect, observes Debashish Chatterjee.
Migrants are no longer sure if they would be able to live by Modi's mantra of "Jaan Bhi Jahaan Bhi".
A Mumbai Police official said the actor was stopped by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) when he reached the station on Monday night to meet some labourers, and added that they have not received any complaint so far in this connection. The migrant labourers were supposed to take the Shramik Special train from Bandra Terminus to Uttar Pradesh.
Kumar had registered for the Shramik Special train. Everyday, he hoped his phone will ring and he will be asked to come to the station. But, only his landlord's call came everyday asking when he would pay the due rent. Dejected with the wait, Kumar decided to go to the Gurgaon Railway Station where he was refused an entry.
Many of the tragedies occurred in the dark, which is when it is cooler to walk, and many people were caught in their sleep. The combination of no traffic and speeding vehicles has led to havoc, endangering the lives of those who found themselves without work or money in the coronavirus-induced lockdown and were frantic to get home, any which way.
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
As the mother still lay still, he wobbles away from her, announcements continuing in the background about the arrival and departure of trains that would bring in tens of thousands of people in a rush to get away from hunger and hardship they face in large cities that could sustain them no more.
Two days before the end of the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday announced a slew of relaxations, including reopening of shrines from June 1.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 53,946, while 34,108 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said.
To capture the information regarding movement of migrants and facilitate the smooth movement of stranded persons across the states, National Disaster Management Authority has developed an online dashboard namely, National Migrant Information System, on the existing NDMA-GIS portal
The migrant workers were walking along the rail tracks apparently to escape the attention of police. A video clip from the scene of the tragedy shows the bodies of migrant workers lying on the tracks and nearby with their meagre personal belongings scattered around.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
"Over 5.42 lakh migrants were screened by health workers and among them 1,230 have been found positive for coronavirus. Samples of 46,142 have been sent for testing," said Principal Secretary (Medical and Health) Amit Mohan Prasad in Lucknow.
The RJD leader was moved by the latter's tale of grief and loss and made his photo the profile picture on his official Twitter handle. He also shared the footage of his interaction with the hapless man.
"I have only Rs 200 left with me. I have not even got the refund for the cancelled ticket. We don't have agricultural land back home. I know it will be hard there, but I will be with my family. I am happy having 'roti and chutney' with them," says Jitendra Mahto, a migrant.
Their dreams of returning home finally taking wing after two months of lockdown, 10 migrant workers are flying to Bihar thanks to their employer, a Delhi farmer, who bought their plane tickets. Their flight to the Bihar capital Patna is at 6 am on Thursday and the men, who planned to go home in April, can't believe they are going to their villages in Samastipur -- not walking or cycling thousands of kilometres, or scrambling for a seat on a bus or train, but on a plane.
What worries state officials is that Bihar expects to receive more than 1 million migrant workers by the end of May.
When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables her Budget on February 1, the numbers could be something to cheer.
Termed 'Unlock 1', the Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
The Unlock 3 guidelines will come into force from August 1 and strict enforcement of lockdown in containment zones will continue till August 31.
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