Company to charter two trains, provide free rail tickets to workers, students from poor families

Every year it can be major challenge for many migrant workers to return home during Chinese Lunar New Year, because of the limited number of train tickets.

Many end up being unable to travel back home during the country's most important annual festival as a result - but this year e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has launched a new initiative to help.

The firm is chartering two trains and providing free tickets to allow 2,000 migrant workers and students from poor families to spend the holidays with loved ones.

Jack Ma, the group's chairman, said if the scheme works well, the firm hopes to cooperate more comprehensively with China Railways Corporation to expand it in the future.

"The rich can buy plane tickets to go back home. The young can book train tickets online.

"But often poor migrants don't know how to use the Internet or have difficulties getting tickets for this most precious family reunion, and we wanted to help," he said.

Alibaba has chartered one train from Shanghai to Xi'an in Shaanxi province on Jan 28 and another from Guangzhou to Guiyang in Guizhou province on Jan 26, to launch the scheme.

Migrants in the two cities are able to call a hotline or register on the social-networking platform WeChat to book a seat.

The scheme has already helped Huang Ruifa, who works on an assembly line in a Shanghai zipper factory.

Born in Ankang in Shaanxi province, the 28-year-old told Alibaba he had been hoping to buy a train ticket home from Shanghai for half a month, getting online first thing in the morning before he starts work. But he had failed because of the sheer volume of people also trying.

"I miss my parents and my brother a lot as I haven't seen them for a year," Huang said.

"So this is not only a free ticket, it warms my heart."

Another successful applicant is Ou Xiaoling, a 34-year-old waitress who has worked in a restaurant in Guangzhou for 15 years.

In the past she has been forced to take an exhausting 12-hour bus ride to get home to Guiyang, because rail tickets to the town were sold out.

"I had planned not to go home this year, because it causes too much stress.

"I called the hotline and Alibaba gave me the best New Year's gift ever, as I can now get together with my family during the festival."

According to the latest official data, there are more than 40,000 sanitation workers in Guangzhou alone, many migrant workers, including Hu Linjun, from Guiyang.

The 36-year-old hasn't been home for five years during Lunar New Year festival, working most of them.

"Alibaba has offered me a free ticket - it will be such a surprise for my parents and my child when I get home this year," he said.

Sun Lijun, Alibaba's vice-president in charge of its rural strategy, said offering free train tickets is just part of the company's charity activities during the holiday.

It will also be donating warm clothes, stationery and books to 40,000 orphans in rural areas and providing 13,000 free New Year's Eve dinners to the elderly or disabled, who have no families to share the day with.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn