Rail passengers find reaching home tough without transport

By Anand SinghNew Delhi, May 14 (IANS) While the Indian Railways ferried over 30,000 passengers in the first two days of the resumption of partial train services, in the absence of the public transport, reaching their homes proved horrendous task for passengers.Most of them were forced to walk to their homes.Ejaz Husaain, who arrived here in the special Rajdhani from Mumbai with four family members, told IANS: “I de-boarded at New Delhi station. I want to go to Seelampur. But there is no public transport, like bus or auto or taxi, to go home.”Looking at his luggage on 5-6 trollies, he said, “I don’t know how to reach home.”Sonu Shrama, who arrived here from Varanasi, UP, in another Rajdhani train on Wednesday, said he really felt homeless as he had to spent night on street.”I came to Delhi on Wednesday in the special train. My train to Jammu is on Thursday. I hunted for space to spend the night, but there was none as all hotels and rest houses are shut,” he said.On Thursday, several Rajdhani specials arrived at the New Delhi stations as the railways had announced to run 15 pairs of such trains from May 12.On Wednesday, the railways ferried over 20,000 passengers and on Thursday over 25,000 more are expected to travel in these Rajdhani specials. After suspending passenger trains from March 25 amid the nationwide lockdown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the railways started Shramik Special trains on May 1. Till date, it has operated over 800 such trains and transported 10 lakh migrant workers across the country.–IANSaks/pcj