You have surely heard of shramik special trains which are deployed to carry stranded migrants their way back to home. We appreciate this initiative of our government but there is a dark side of this also.
Many instances have already proved the ill-preparedness of the government and now the complaints of migrants about poor hygienic conditions and lack of food and water on these trains are surfacing everywhere. The condition is such bad that migrants are forced to drink water from train toilets.
Apart from this, these trains are delayed on the track for hours without basic facilities. Talking to The Hindu, a passenger on a train bound to UP, explained the situation said: Even fetching toilet tap water became difficult after a point. People were fighting over it. Forget food, we wanted water. Sharir me paani nahi gaya tha, kamzoori aa rahi thi.
Another passenger on a train for Madhya Pradesh, which was stuck for 18-20 hours said: ‘There was nothing to eat or drink on the train. I was anyway starving without work. It would have been better to die back there than board this train.’
Talking more about this he said that he found no food and water on any station, then the passengers were forced to drink water from the toilet taps.
