Indian Railways has been running Shramik Special Train since May 1 for helping stranded students, devotees, laborers to reach their homes across the nation. The passengers on these trains were served with food and drinking water while 80% of the fare was borne by railway authorities.
In order to ensure an adequate supply of food and water in these Shramik Special Trains, the Indian Railways has joined hands with major corporates including Coca-Cola, ITC and HUL. During the run of these trains, it was noticed that due to stressed supply chains amid the following lockdown, providing refreshments has become a major concern.
Therefore, Indian Railways has established direct collaboration with major corporates, who have been coming forward to help the cause as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative.
As per the reports, about one-lakh bottles of Coca-Cola and juices, sponsored by the brand Coca-Cola were distributed among the passengers on June 1 only. Further, the ITC corporation too helped by providing water bottles, packaged snacks, biscuits, and food amounting to worth ₹25 Lakh to make ‘ration kits’ for each of the migrant passengers on-board on the Shramik Special Trains going to North-east.
Other companies that have come forward to help Indian Railways in maintaining proper hygiene and safety standards at the stations, as well as mid-journey, include Hindustan Unilever who have provided COVID-19 safe foot-operated sanitization kiosks at multiple places. FSSAI has been giving online courses for food safety instructions to the railway staff, Crompton Greaves has supplied 25 industrial-level sprayers for sanitization at big stations.
Till now, across the country, at least 1.19 crore meal boxes and about 1.5 crores of water bottles shave been supplied by the Indian Railways.