A special train carrying 1,140 migrant workers stranded here in the lockdown has left Mangaluru railway station for Jharkhand. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Vedavyas Kamath, MLA, were present at the railway station on Saturday night when the train left. Kamath said the workers who had registered on the state governments Seva Sindhu portal were brought to the railway station in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses.
A health check-up was carried out before they boarded the train. The district administration also provided food packets and water to the migrants at the station. Three more trains will leave from Mangaluru for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand soon, he said. Meanwhile, in a statement, Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sindhu P Rupesh said train services are being arranged for migrant workers who have registered their names on the Seva Sindhu portal.
The workers will be informed when trains are arranged to their destinations and they need not throng the railway station unnecessarily, she said. Around 20,000 workers have so far registered themselves online, including 5,000 from Jharkhand, 3,000 from Uttar Pradesh and 4,000 from Bihar. Hundreds of migrant workers had on Friday staged a protest at the central railway station here, demanding that they be sent back home.
