Over 3,000 special festival trains have been added by the Northern Railway this year to help ease the rush between October 1 and November 30. To facilitate travel for those heading home for Diwali and Chhath Puja, 195 special trains were run between 26 Oct to 7 Nov this year compared to 138 last year during the same period.
Around 85% of these special festival trains, largely from Delhi and Mumbai, head towards Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Assam _ states that see large numbers of informal workers migrate to urban centres in search of a better life.
The journey on board these crowded trains is arduous for migrant workers, who struggle to access basic amenities with long queues for restrooms, lack of seating, limited luggage storage, and difficulty reaching food and water vendors.
