Migrants panic after Shramik trains to UP, Bihar diverted via Odisha

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, May 23

Thousands of migrants who boarded the Shramik Special trains to UP and Bihar

were left in a state of panic on Saturday after the Railways opted to divert the trains via Odisha.

The matter came to light after migrant passengers who had boarded these trains from Vasai Road outside Mumbai on Thursday posted visuals of the Rourkela Railway Station in Odisha on social media.

“The driver of the train has lost his way and landed in Odisha,” said one video posted on social media.

Other passengers complained that the Railways had not provided food and water to passengers on the diverted routes and the toilets in the trains were choked up.

“We are unable to buy any food from the railway stations as the stall owners chase us away calling us ‘corona’,” a man said on his video posted on Twitter.

Later on Saturday, the Railways clarified that there was no goof-up and at least 13 trains departing from Maharashtra and Gujarat to UP, Bihar and West Bengal had been diverted due to “congestion on the routes”.

“Trains on the Western, Central and the Konkan Railway lines on the Itarsi-Manikpur-Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay (Mughalserai) Junction have been

diverted via the Bilaspur-Jharsuguda-Rourkela route,” said Western Railway

spokesperson Ravindra Bhakar.

According to Bhakar, traffic has been diverted via the alternate routes because of heavy traffic on the original route which was causing delays.

The diversion has, however, resulted in long delays. A two-day journey from Mumbai to Gorakpur is likely to take more than three days as the trains take the circuitous routes.

Passengers on board the trains say they were not informed of the changed routes nor the time it would take them to reach their destinations.