The Government on Friday announced allowing the movement of migrant workers, tourists, students and other persons stranded at different places, by special trains.

“Movement of migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons, stranded at different places, is also allowed by special trains to be operated by the Ministry of Railways,” a notification from the Ministry of Home Affairs read.

The Ministry of Railways will designate nodal officers for coordinating with states/UTs for their movement. The ministry will issued detailed guidelines for sale of tickets and for social distancing and other safety measures to be observed at train stations, platforms and within the trains, the statement further said.

Passengers will be screened by the states sending them and only those found asymptomatic will be allowed. The sending state governments will have to bring passengers in batches to the designated railway station in sanitised buses following social distancing norms and other precautions, said the Ministry of Railways.

On arrival at the destination, passengers will be received by the state government, who would make all arrangements for their screening and quarantine them if necessary, the ministry further said.

The Government move comes on the heels of a meeting of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of Commerce and Railways Piyush Goyal, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba.

This comes as many states including Punjab, Kerala and Chhattisgarh have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to arrange point-to-point special trains for the inter-state movement of migrants.

Many state governments had proposed running special trains stating that transportation of labourers by buses was “impractical and not feasible”.

Earlier on Friday, a special non-stop train left Telangana for Jharkhand carrying 1,200 migrant workers, on request of the Telangana government and as per the directions of the Ministry of Railways.

The train started from Lingampalli in Hyderabad at 5 am and will reach Hatia in Jharkhand at around 11 pm.

According to railway officials, the special train operated as a “one-off service”.

This is the first such train service to have taken place after the lockdown to move stranded migrants.

Meanwhile, another special train carrying around 1200 migrant labourers will depart tonight from Kerala’s Aluva to Odisha’s Bhubaneswar.

According to Additional Chief Secretary, Dr Vishwas Mehta, “Five more trains are being allowed but their destinations are yet to be decided.”

Earlier in the day, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel had written to PM Modi demanding ‘point-to-point’ special trains to bring back migrant labourers who are stranded in other states. A request was already made to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Government had on Wednesday issued an order to all the States and Union Territories to facilitate Inter-State movement of stranded people including migrant labourers in the country. While allowing the same, the Ministry of Home Affairs had stated that “buses shall be used for transport of a group of persons, of course, after proper sanitization and maintaining social distancing norms in seating”.