OUT OF COVID HOLE Limited passenger trains to operate from May 12 onwards
This could be the moment many of us were itching for. Indian Railways proposes to resume passenger train operations from May 12 onwards – albeit in phases.
The gradual resumption would see 15 pairs of trains operating initially (a total of 30 journeys). These special trains will emanate from New Delhi and run to 15 important cities.
Among the designated destinations are Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi, a government notice states.
Union Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal also took to twitter to confirm the resumption.
The trains will have only air-conditioned coaches and limited stoppages. The bookings will be made only on ISRTC site and will start from 4 pm on Monday. That should bring much respite to thousands who are either stranded or unable to make journeys to attend to contingencies, such as an ailing and aged relative.
However, ticket booking counters at railway stations will remain closed and no counter tickets (including platform tickets) will be issued, to minimise crowding of any kind.
In keeping with the call of our times, passengers will be obliged to wear masks and undergo screening at the point of departure; also, only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to board the train. In fact, only passengers with valid confirmed tickets will be allowed to enter railway stations. Further details, including the train schedule, will be issued separately in due course, the notification said.
The Railways is expected to later start more special services on new routes, based on availability of coaches, af ter reserving 20,000 coaches for Covid-19 care centres and an adequate number for ‘Shramik Specials’ for stranded migrants.
Before the lockdown, the Railways was operating around 12,000 trains ever y day, transporting Rs 28,032.80 crore worth of goods and earning Rs 12,844.37 crore from passenger fares in the third quarter of 2019/20 alone, according to news agency PTI.
The nationwide lockdown and the subsequent banning of passenger trains cut sharply into the government's revenue from rail traffic and severely disrupted normal life for tens of thousands of Indians.