Mumbai: Hundreds of migrant labourers who boarded a train from Mumbai to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP) landed at Rourkela in Odisha instead, on Friday.
While railway officials claimed it was a planned diversion on account ofe of congestion in NCR ( North Central Railway), the passengers were however, kept in the dark about the railway’s move and spent several hours without food and water .
” The Vasai Road – Gorakhpur Shramik Special train which departed on May 21 was to run on Kalyan-Jalgoan-Bhusaval-Khandwa – Itarsi – Jabalpur – Manikpur route,” Chief PRO, Western Railway Ravindra Bhakar said.
“However, this train will travel to Gorakhpur on a diverted route: via Bilaspur (SECR), Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Adra and Asansol (ER) due to heavy traffic congestion on existing routes,” he said.
This is not an isolated case. On May 20, another train which departed from Borivali to Gorakhpur has still not reached its’ destination. In normal course, the Awadh Express covers the same distance in about 34 hours. But the Shramik special which was departed on May 20 at 7 pm from Borivali reached Basti at 3.15 pm on Saturday, after 68 hours. It still needed more than an hour to reach Gorakhpur.
