The migrant workers who returned to 116 districts of six states will get benefits under recently launched Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan as they will get employment in 160 railway infrastructure development works, said Vinod Kumar Yadav, Chairman, Railway Board on Friday.
Addressing an online press conference, Yadav said, "Returnee migrant workers and similarly affected rural population of 6 states: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand have returned to their homes in 116 districts in these six States. They will get benefits of recently launched Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan."
"They will get employment in 160 railway infrastructure development works which require 8,828 manpower and 8,67,675 man-days. They will get a job for 125 days commencing from June 20. This project is worth Rs 1,888 crore," he added.
He said that transportation of essential items like medical supplies, medical equipment, food, in small parcel sizes, have been continuously ensured through Indian railways.
"In order to fill in this vital need, Indian Railways has made railway parcel vans available for quick mass transportation by E-Commerce entities and other customers including State governments. Railways have decided to run time-tabled Parcel Special trains on select routes, to ensure uninterrupted supply of essential items," he said."Zonal Railways are regularly identifying and notifying routes for these Parcel Special trains. Presently these trains are being operated on 96 routes," he added.
Yadav said that 5231 coaches have been converted into COVID Care Centres across the country.
So far, 30 Special Rajdh Trains and 200 Special Mail Express Trains have completed their journey and more trains will be run as per requirement, he said.
"A total of 4,594 Shramik Specials operated till June 25 and 62.8 lakh passengers moved in these trains which started from Shramik Diwas (May 1)," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )