MOVEMENT OF MIGRANT POPULATION BY THE INDIAN RAILWAYS

 

MOVEMENT OF MIGRANT POPULATION BY THE INDIAN RAILWAYS

   A  Gayatri, Ramulu, one Shiva Prasad, the Apte family, a Hazarika  were all stranded, seemingly under siege, unsure of what lay in store for them when the Government of India, in an unprecedented measure, announced a national lock down on 24^th  March, 2020 to apprehend the growth of the contagion of SARS-CoV-2.

   It appeared as if time had frozen for the denizens of this land spanning from Bengaluru to Buxar, Shillong to Sangrur. These were not the best of times, which Charles Dickens would too have concurred and isolation of the population was the only solution.

   Readers may recall footage on television screens that captured the angst and misery of migrants. In some cases they revolted, as at Bandra station in Mumbai and virtually ran amuck at Surat, demanding trains to ferry them back home.

A paramount tipping point arrived in post-independence history of the country, when the government of India planned the largest transportation of population-primarily migrant labour- stuck at 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 organise transportation of migrant labour. Reports surfaced in both electronic and print media that in sheer desperation daily wage earners were risking their life and limb. 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 road 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.

   At the microcosmic level, the government had to address the grievances of the people locked down, initiate the process of isolation of COVID-19 afflicted people and unleash a strategy to transport the vast multitudes of desperate populace. 

   Thus began the narrative of an unparalleled exodus of the citizens, ironically in free India and within their own country.

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

   Some cold, gruesome statistics stare at us menacingly (as on 24 June, 2020). Around 93, 61,474 have been afflicted by this lethal disease which has accounted for 4, 79,910 deaths worldwide. At home there have been 4, 56, 183 reported cases which have resulted in 14, 476 causalities.

This year in particular, has witnessed a harsh summer in more ways than one.

   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 Hajipur, Bihar and North East Frontier Railway at Maligaon, Guwahati- have been sealed and officers asked to self quarantine.

   The human resources, the core of railway operations, braced themselves 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 windmills of nation’s economy churn and stranded denizens reach the oasis of their homes.

 

   Meanwhile the Ministry of Railways is also contemplating to operate another 120 special trains from 1August, 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 mobilisation exercise; put them back on the network so to speak.

   Tragically the media, civil rights groups and certain political parties have been scathing in their attacks on this gargantuan transportation exercise. They have focussed almost exclusively on highlighting 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 cleanly 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 has been borne by the Central Government while 15% was paid by the State Governments.

   India is in Unlock 1.0, upon completion of a series of four lockdowns, before total unlocking exercise commences. 

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 May and 31 May, 2020. The irony of the services beginning on 1May wouldn’t be lost on anyone!

   On an average each train consisted of 18 to 22 coaches, carrying approximately 1200 passengers. Currently the second wave of migrant specials is scorching the tracks, to ferry those who were left behind for a variety of reasons. Further the aim is to move brick kiln workers who are unemployed as pre-monsoon/monsoon rains have set in, in almost all parts of the country.

 

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 labour 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.

  At the helm was the Ministry of Home Affairs which had 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 had planned the number of migrant specials which were to ply. This information was percolated back to the states, and from the state capitals it was disseminated 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, shunting staff were all sanitised to ensure their own safety and as well as that of the travellers. Checks were made 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.

   To ensure seamless movement of such gargantuan proportions it was paramount that Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Railways and various State Governments worked in unison.

   Based on inputs received top mandarins from Railway Board, the Zonal and Divisional level were hooked on almost daily video conferences; which was learning and an 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 with panache by all stakeholders .

    The third step in the exercise was once the trains arrived at the destination. The passengers were screened and sanitized once again, thereafter quarantined or sent to their respective villages and bijou towns, as needed. 

   Imagine plying two hundred trains from say a point in India’s North-East to Uttar Pradesh within a span of ten days. The issue of line capacity was not a 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 were additional trains 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.

  As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. It goes to the credit of the railways and other agencies involved that changes were made with great agility to resolve issues as they cropped up.

    In the first instance, movement was 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.

   Thereafter the railways and district administrations worked in tandem and initiated two to three points 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 May 12, 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 June 1, 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 weather.

   Of course an exercise of such magnitude can never be perfect. Admittedly there have been shortcomings. But let us not forget that the railway staff went to work not always fully equipped. Defying all risks to their personal safety the personnel plunged into the chain to transport the stranded labour. Unfortunately a few succumbed in the line of duty. A few days back a TTE from Agra who was part of a “Shramik Special” succumbed to the lethal microorganism.

   Today 500 coaches have been parked at Anand Vihar, Shakur Basti and Tughlaqabad terminals (of Northern Railway) in Delhi which has seen a sudden spike in the number of COVID-19 cases. A terminal at Mau (North Eastern Railway) in Uttar Pradesh has been identified where 50 coaches have been 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 have been 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.

 

 

 

Migrant Workers- Position in Six Identified States
S.No	STATE	No. of Ongoing Infrastructure Works wherein Migrants can be engaged throughContractors	Expected no. of migrants which can be engaged	Expected man- days for which migrants can be engaged	Payment released to Contractor since restart of work after lockdown (in Crore)	Payment expected till 31st Oct 2020, including col- 6 (in Crore)
1	Bihar	46	2313	154840	137.14	518.50
2	Jharkhand	5	155	12900	5.41	33.30
3	Madhya Pradesh	37	2247	177875	77.14	383.05
4	Odisha	10	170	6320	18.51	125.35
5	Rajasthan	15	715	113700	1.58	212.50
6	Uttar Pradesh	47	2436	318618	82.31	580.34
	TOTAL	160	8036	784253	322.09	1853.04

Source – Construction Organisation of Indian Railways

 

Migrant Workers- Position in 116 Identified Districts Railway wise
IR CONSTRUCTION Organisation		No. of Ongoing Infrastructure Works wherein Migrants can be engaged.	Expected no. of migrants which can be engaged	Expectedman days for which migrants can be engaged	Payment released to Contractor since restart of work after lockdown (in Crore)	Payment expected till 31st Oct 2020, includingcol-6 (in Crore)
S.No.	Zonal Rly	3	4	5	6	7
1	RE	19	1170	137300	25.79	120.5
2	CR	4	75	4500	1.1	22
3	ER	2	50	3000	1.44	8.3
3	ECR N	20	1157	23240	108.01	344
4	ECR S	10	1053	128900	39.15	122.7
5	ECoR	6	30	2600	9.66	114.2
6	NR-I	2	50	3000	7	38
7	NR-II	6	124	8160	0.75	13.5
8	NCR	18	154	10380	24	59
9	NER	23	1060	174350	41.28	219.09
10	NWR	7	445	80500	0	170
11	SER	3	70	420	0	0.15
12	SECR	1	0	0	0	0
13	WR	8	130	10200	2.2	38
14	WCR	10	287	29825	29.5	101.65
15	SCR	1	200	31200	0	20
16	RITES	5	520	46270	14.49	54.5
17	RVNL	8	1185	137400	22.65	253
18	IRCON	7	768	1630	31.97	147.45
	SUM	160	8036	784253	322.09	1853.04

Source- Construction Organisation of Indian Railways

"In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can,” writes the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis.