IT Correspondent
Mumbai, May 11:
Indian Railways is planning to gradually resume passenger train operations from Tuesday, May 12 onwards, with 15 special passenger trains, from New Delhi Station to major stations across the country. These special trains will be run from New Delhi station to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi, the government notice stated.
Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal also took to Twitter to inform that railway operations will resume with 15 pairs of special trains (30 return journeys) connecting New Delhi with major stations across India initially. Bookings for these trains was to begin late Monday evening.
The railway notification further mentioned that Indian Railways shall thereafter start more special services on new routes, based on the available coaches after reserving 20,000 coaches for Covid-19 care centres and an adequate number of coaches are being reserved to enable operation of up to 300 trains every day as “Shramik Special” for stranded migrants.
The booking for reservation in these trains is allowed on the IRCTC website (https://www.irctc.co.in/). Ticket booking counters at the railway stations will remain closed and no counter tickets (including platform tickets) will be issued. It will be mandatory for the passengers to wear face cover and undergo screening at departure and only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to board the train.
While 302 Shramik special trains have so far ferried 3.4 lakh migrants, Maharashtra Government has decided to bear the cost of the ticket fare of the migrants. The district collectors will initially bear the expenses of tickets, which will be reimbursed from CM’s relief fund, a notification issued by CM’s office here on Sunday night stated. In the meanwhile Indian railways is expected to see an estimated shortfall of Rs.90,000 crore to its earnings due to lockdown.