Babies born on board Shramik Special trains to get gifts in this Railway zone

File photo

New Delhi: The East Coast Railway has decided to sponsor gifts or cash to the children born on board Shramik Special trains on its network in an effort to support the new mothers, officials said.

The effort will be completely voluntary by officers of the zone and will either be in the form of cash or gifts. The first such sponsorship came from the general manager of the zone, Vidya Bhushan himself who sent Rs 5,000 to the mother of a child born on Friday, which was the third child born in the zone so far.

Since May 1, around 37 children have been born on board Shramik Special trains and on railway premises.

On Friday, 19-year-old Meena Kumbhar delivered a baby boy on the train. A railway doctor in Titilagarh attended and examined the woman and the baby and found them to be in good condition. Subsequently, they were shifted to the government hospital at Titilagarh on the advice of the medical authorities of Balangir district, an EcoR spokesperson said.

This is the third baby born in Shramik Special train in East Coast Railway jurisdiction and also in Odisha. All of them have been shifted to government hospitals. Of the three babies, two have been born at Titilagarh and one at Balangir.

"East Coast Railway General Manager Vidya Bhushan today made an announcement that ECoR officials, on personal and voluntary sponsorship basis, will sponsor a gift coupon to the new born babies in ECoR jurisdiction.

"The GM himself sent a gift amount of Rs 5,000 for the baby. Other senior officials have volunteered to sponsor gift items in subsequent cases, if any, of babies born in Shramik Special Trains," the spokesperson told PTI.

Earlier, a migrant woman, the native of a village in Balangir district, had given birth to a baby boy on a 'Shramik Special' train at Balangir on May 22, another woman returning home in Chhattisgarh had delivered a baby girl on a train at Titilagarh on May 24.