5 Dariya News

District Administration requests cancellation of next scheduled trains considering Low turnout in 4 trains departing today

5 Dariya News

S.A.S. Nagar 25-May-2020

The District Administration has requested the cancellation of any other scheduled trains from Mohali keeping in view the extremely low turnout in the 4 trains that left Mohali railway station today for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.For Today’s first train at 10 am that left for Araria station in Bihar carrying 553 migrant workers, 3506 migrants were contacted (Turnout 16 percent), while for the second train that left at 1 pm left for Bettiah station in Bihar carrying a total of 485 migrants, 4047 migrants were contacted (Turnout 19 percent). For the third train that chugged off the station at 4 pm, 2405 migrants were contacted but only 1238 migrant workers boarded the train (turnout 51 percent) to Maharajganj station in Uttar Pradesh. For the 4th train that left for Balia in Uttar Pradesh, a total of 5975 migrants were contacted but only 1600 migrants chose to go thus making it a mere 26 percent turnout.It is important to mention that the district administration adopted a system of calling all the registered persons and sought their consent. With the relaxations announced in the lockdown, the drop rate of 30-35 percent was witnessed. Further, those who consented to go and were sent SMSs to arrive at the collection centres, there was a drop rate of another 10-15 percent. Approximately, 7030 persons were sent to their home states through special buses and their own vehicles. Therefore, in view of the relaxations in lockdown, it was earlier intimated that running many trains may not be required.The low turnout was despite the fact that multilingual banners and posters including hindi, were published at prominent places which had complete schedule of the trains alongwith their timings. Extensive Muniadi was also done through area SHOs, Eos and Panchayat Secretaries to ensure that any person from UP/Bihar desirous of going back was informed whether registered or not. Special attention was paid to areas where such migrants lived and the social media was also used including watsapp messages to inform the migrants.It is also noteworthy that the shramik special trains were started on 7th May, 2020 and till date 19 trains to different states have been sent carrying a total of 23,030.