No consent required from destination states to run Shramik Special trains: Railways

New Delhi: The Railways on Tuesday said the consent of the destination states is not required to operate Shramik Special trains, hours after the Home Ministry issued a standard operating procedure for the national transporter to run these trains to ferry migrants to their native places.

"Consent of terminating state not necessary to run Shramik Special trains," Railways spokesperson Rajesh Bajpai said.

"After the new SoP, the implication is that no consent of receiving state is mandatory," he said.

Earlier, a political storm had broken out when Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said that West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh were being laggards in approving these trains.

Since May 1, the Railways has run 1,565 migrant trains and ferried over 20 lakh migrants.