Migrants run over by train had applied for e-passes, decided to walk after no response from govt

Mumbai, May 08: Sixteen migrant workers who were killed after a cargo train ran over them while they were sleeping on the tracks in Maharashtra's Aurangabad had applied for e-transit passes a week ago but decided to walk towards their home state after not receiving any response from authorities.

One of the three survivors, Dhirendra Singh, said "we had applied for e-passes a week ago with authorities in MP but got no response."

There have been many complaints against e-passes required for migrant workers and others stranded because of the lockdown as the portal either does not provide a response or an invalid pass.

The central government last week had agreed to run "Shramik" special trains for migrants who need to return home for emergency reasons. Indian Railways has so far operated about 200 Shramik Special trains since 1st of this month and ferried home nearly 2 lakh migrants stranded in various parts of the country due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

The online link for e-passes provided by MAP-IT, the online authority of MP government issuing e-passes, was defunct on Friday.

Chilling details emerged about the tragedy involving a group of migrant workers who were on their way to native places in Madhya Pradesh on foot from Maharashtra and had taken a break to rest on rail tracks out of sheer fatigue.

The accident left 16 migrant workers dead and one injured while three others survived.

All of them were working in a steel manufacturing in Jalna, a district adjoining Aurangabad in central Maharashtra, and were heading home in the amidst of coronavirus-enforced lockdown.