Gayatri, Ramulu, Shiva Prasad, the Apte family, Hazarika, etc. – they were all stranded due to the lockdown, unsure of what lay in store for them – when the Government of India, in an unprecedented measure, announced a national lockdown on 24 March 2020 to prevent the spread of the contagion SARS-CoV-2. Initially, the news was taken stoically, but it appeared as if everything had come to a standstill across India. These were not the best of times, which Charles Dickens too would have concurred and isolation of the population was the only solution.

A paramount tipping point had arrived in the post-independence history of the country, when the Government of India planned the largest transportation of population – primarily migrant labour – stuck in their work stations – to the safe sanctuary of their dwelling places. Thus, at the macrocosmic level, it became an onerous responsibility for the government to organize the transportation of migrant labour. Reports surfaced in both electronic and print media that in sheer desperation daily wage earners were even willing to walk hundreds of kilometers. Any mode of transportation was better than none at all – hitch a ride on the odd truck, sneak on to freight trains or Parcel Specials, or simply walk or cycle along the long and arduous journey home – to reach their villages and bijou towns as the peril of the pandemic loomed large across swathes of the land. Their savings were dipping at an alarming rate; there were no avenues to earn their daily wages and they were understandably caught in the vortex of a fear psychosis.

The central government pressed in the services of the Indian Railways (IR) by adopting the quintuplicate of running of (I) Migrant Special trains, (ii) conversion of coaches into isolation wards, (iii) planning and running of special Rajdhani trains, and (iv) other special trains; and finally, leading to mobilising of rolling stock for running of the second wave of Shramik Specials.

As I pen down my thoughts to describe this gargantuan exercise undertaken by the IR, news is coming in that two zonal headquarter offices – East Central Railway, headquartered at Haripur, Bihar and North East Frontier Railway at Malegaon, Guwahati – have been sealed and officers asked to self-quarantine.

The human resources, the core of railway operations, braced itself to face the challenge posed by the multiple strands of activity – transporting migrant labour, ferrying essential commodities by freight cargo trains, running Parcel Specials, and running 230 trains, which included 30 Rajdhani Express trains and another 200 special trains. It is pertinent to mention that these trains were run in a calibrated manner to ensure the essentials and supply chain for the nation’s economy were ensured and stranded denizens reach the safety of their homes. The Railways ensured that there was no shortage of essential commodities like coal for power houses, food grains, fertilizers, etc. throughout the lockdown period. “Shramik Specials” have run on some of the most densely patronized corridors which carry essential freight like coal for power plants, food grain, fertilizer, cement, etc. In fact, the food grain loading (4532 rakes and 12.2 million tonnes) during the lockdown period is almost double the loading achieved during the corresponding period of last year.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Railways is also contemplating to operate another 120 special trains from 1 August 2020 as a measure to provide further fuel to the economy depending on the requirement of state governments and the levels of the pandemic, to ensure further connectivity to the places which were not part of the previous mobilization exercise; and put them back on the network so to speak.

Ironically, the media, civil rights groups and certain political parties were scathing in their attacks on this gargantuan transportation exercise. They focused almost exclusively on highlighting the deaths of some passengers on the trains during the journey (tragic indeed!), stray incidences of irate labour resorting to alarm chain pulling in desperation, as they ransacked some stalls to pick up water bottles to quench their parched throats and a few packets of biscuits to satiate their hunger, while clearly ignoring the magnitude of the exercise which was undertaken.

There have been insinuations about tariff charged from the passengers; this despite repeated clarifications that 85% of the tariff was borne by the Central Government, while 15% was paid by the State Governments.

How the movement of migrant specials began?

In the first round of transportation, a monumental 4,347 “Shramik Specials” were run by the largest transporter of the country between 1 and 31 May 2020. On average, each train consisted of 18 to 22 coaches, carrying approximately 1200 passengers. After the first wave, the second wave of migrant specials was getting readied to ferry the stranded. Further, the aim was to move brick kiln workers who were unemployed as pre-monsoon/monsoon rains had set in, in almost all parts of the country. The total number of trains run can be seen in the following Table, indicating the complexity of the crisis crossing and complexity of the movements.

The Operation

Transportation of migrant labour was a task which involved detailed planning and execution and was broadly a threefold exercise. An organised exodus of migrant labour was an exigency which confronted the Ministry of Home Affairs, Indian Railways and various state governments. Migrant workers who were housed in factories, containment areas, locked in their shanties, brick kilns, quarantine zones, farms and other places of work were enumerated by the district administration and the numbers were conveyed to their counterparts in other states and the Railway authorities.

The next step following the enumeration was identification of the migrants and disbursement of tickets. Each train consisted of around 18 to 22 coaches of sleeper coaches (GSCN) and ordinary coaches (GS), which carried 1200 migrants ensuring absolute social distancing as mentioned earlier. At the helm was the Ministry of Home Affairs which liaised with the Ministry of Railways and state governments through regular virtual meetings, identifying the numbers, places of boarding and disembarkment and onward movement to the final destinations. From the inputs provided by various state governments, the Railway Board  planned the number of migrant specials which were to ply. This information was disseminated to the states, and from the state capitals to the districts.

Every District Magistrate coordinated with the Divisional Railway Manager right from the technicalities of placement of an indent (the first step in the process of organising a special train); and accordingly, a rake was organised and provided by the operating department. For instance, in a single day, 250 odd specials ran from several points of the country and more specifically say from Bengaluru to Guwahati or Aligarh to Gaya. On more than one occasion, the number of originating trains was far greater than a single special train and this required dextrous planning and deft execution.

A vital aspect was planning the requirement of passenger rakes, their maintenance and placement at the designated terminals to begin the exercise of transporting the men, women and children. The station premises, the trains, the Train Ticket Examiners (TTEs), loco pilots, assistant loco pilots, guards, station masters, and shunting staff were all sanitised to ensure their own safety as well as that of the travellers. Checks were conducted by the medical staff and the constables of the Railway Protection Force (RPF). Thus, in times of acute crisis, these railway personnel became the frontline warriors.

Based on inputs received, top mandarins from Railway Board at the Zonal and Divisional levels, were hooked on to almost daily video conferences, which were learning and unlearning process. As per the requirements of district administration, boarding and debarking points were planned and even altered on account of logistical reasons at the shortest notice, which was an exigent task but managed professionally by all stakeholders .

The third step in the management was operations after the arrival of the trains. The passengers were screened and sanitized once again, thereafter quarantined or sent to their respective villages and towns, as per plan.

Visualize the plying of two hundred trains from say a point in India’s North-East to Uttar Pradesh within a span of ten days. Line capacity was not the constraint. However, to ferry frayed migrant labour to the point of boarding, sanitising them and also sanitising the rakes, locomotives and the railway personnel attending to them, and transporting the migrants, was both a physical and a psychological challenge.

For the naysayers, it may have appeared why additional trains were not run to evacuate migrant labour in much larger numbers, when line capacity was available; but perhaps they ignore the quantum of effort involved. To ensure safety first was paramount on the minds of both the Central and State governments.

Train movements were planned from one point to another with only operational halts in between (point to point movement as it is known). The concerned district administrations would have to handle the passengers only at the points of boarding and disembarking.

However, this model of running train operations resulted in clogging of rail arteries. The existing line capacity was jammed as the pipeline of trains was moving towards a single point of detraining. It must be remembered that the railway system, was simultaneously transporting essential commodities and running Parcel Specials.

The solution to this situation lay in opening up of additional terminals in the receiving city. This of course meant that the civil administration had to deploy substantial additional staff in order to ensure that all screening, sanitising and/or quarantine protocols were upheld upon arrival. Railways and district administrations worked in tandem and initiated two to three points for de-boarding, which facilitated transportation of larger numbers of the stranded labour.

As this exercise was underway, the government introduced 15 pairs of special Rajdhani trains beginning 12 May 2020, connecting important cities in India. This catered to the demand of the middle and upper-middle income group of citizens who too had been stranded since the lockdown began. On 1 June 2020, the railway administration, introduced 100 special trains to transport passengers.

Strict adherence to the protocols of social distancing and sanitisation were observed. Railway employees, district administration officials, medical and paramedical teams and security agencies worked with great diligence to ensure as smooth a transit as possible for the migrants, given the vast numbers and scorching summer.

Of course, an exercise of such magnitude can never be perfect. Admittedly, there have been shortcomings. Let us remember the railway staff were also exposed to the risk. Defying all risks to their personal safety, the personnel plunged into the chain to transport the stranded labour. Unfortunately, a few succumbed to the infection in the line of duty.

In a parallel development, 500 coaches were parked at Anand Vihar, Shakur Basti and Tughlaqabad terminals (of Northern Railway) in Delhi to handle the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases. A terminal at Mau (North Eastern Railway) in Uttar Pradesh was identified where 50 coaches were parked to be utilised as isolation wards.  Northern Railway and North Eastern Railway have been authorised to ensure cleanliness and sanitation, enforce social distancing and provide catering arrangements in these stationary isolation wards. Additionally, district magistrates were advised to contact DRMs to requisition additional coaches as and when required.

The story of the Indian Railways’ involvement in the migrant labour crisis goes a step further as IR does its bit to provide employment to them. They have now embarked upon a programme of engaging their services in a constructive manner. Details of employment of the migrant population in certain states, across different zonal railways give a clearer picture.

Complexity of ‘Shramik Specials’ operations

The following facts are pointed out only with the limited propose of highlighting the peculiar problems which were required to be dealt with in such unprecedented circumstances. It is to be remembered these were run under the conditions of the Covid pandemic and these were totally unscheduled operations. The complexities in operating Shramik Special Trains on a massive scale as a temporary measure poses several challenges:

• Non-feasibility of pre-specified timetable as the trains were operated based on dynamic demand and departure time as per the convenience of the dispatching State Government and the Railways operated without the comfort of prespecified timetable;
• The crew and the rakes (train sets) were arranged on a case to case basis as opposed to regular trains which have pre-defined links;
• The platform berthing and maintenance schedules were arranged for each train after demand was received from district administration;
• The Railways, in order to alleviate the problems of the migrants, kept no restriction on the States in respect of originating points as also the number of trains to be operated;
• As per the guidelines of the Ministry of Health, specified pre-boarding health screening protocol was followed which put stress on the system as additional time and space were required at the stations;
• The requirement for arrangement of food and water for passengers was arranged despite the closure of all catering facilities due to lockdown;
• The requirement of social distancing was adhered to at boarding/de-boarding stations and platforms and so trains were operated with less than full capacity;
• In addition to these, the Railways also ran 3650 parcel trains covering 96 routes to deliver agricultural products, medicines and other essential commodities (1.22 lakh tonnes) during the lockdown period apart from the Shramik Operations;

Despite these broad complexities, the Railways have fully met the demand placed by various State Governments and is further in a position to complete the requirement within a single day.

 Source: Statistics provided by Coaching Directorate Railway Board

 

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