Babies born on board Shramik Special trains will now be presented gifts by the East Coast Railway, which pioneered the noble concept by rewarding the mother of a newborn on Friday.

The gifts, to be given by ECoR officials on a voluntary basis, will be in the form of cash or kind, said a railway official.

All over Indian Railways, there is good news of babies being born on Shramik Special trains which is considered as a good and auspicious omen, the official added.

The geographical jurisdiction of the ECoR zone extends over three states encompassing almost all of Odisha and Bastar, Mahasamund & Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh and Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh.

The zonal headquarters is at Bhubaneswar. The zone has three divisions– Sambalpur, Khurda Road and Waltair.

ECoR General Manager, Vidya Bhushan, on Friday made an announcement that officials of the railway zone, on personal and voluntary basis, will sponsor a gift coupon to the new born babies in the jurisdiction of the zone, he said.

As a noble gesture, the GM , himself sent a gift amount of Rs 5,000 for the baby born aboard a Shramik Special at Titilagarh in Odisha” Balangir district on Friday morning.

The gift was sent to the child’s 19-year-old mother, Meena Kumbhar, he said.

The migrant woman, who was returning home in Odisha after being stuck in Telangana due to a lockdown, gave birth to a baby on Balangir-bound special train this morning.

Other senior officials have come forward to sponsor gift items in subsequent cases, if any, of babies born in Shramik Special trains.

Since Shramik Special service started in May to carry stranded migrant workers to their home states during lockdown, as many as 37 children have been born on board these trains and on railway premises in different parts of the country, an ECoR spokesperson said.

In ECoR jurisdiction, three babies have been born and all the three newborn along with their mothers were properly shifted to government hospitals.

Of the three babies, two were born at Titilagarh and one at Balangir, he said in a statement.