Indian Railways will resume passenger train operations from Tuesday, May 12, nearly two months after the services were stopped due to the coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown.
Booking for reservation in these trains will start at 4 pm today, and will be available only on the IRCTC website (https://www.irctc.co.in/). Ticket booking counters at the railway stations shall remain closed.
Here are the details of the announcement-
– Indian Railways has decided for the gradual resumption of passenger train services but existing Shramik special trains will continue to run as per current system on the request of the concerned state governments.
– Initially, the Railways will run 15 pairs of trains (30 return journeys). These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi Station connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
– Thereafter, Indian Railways shall 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 being reserved to enable operation of up to 300 trains every day as ‘Shramik Special’ for stranded migrants.
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– Only passengers with valid confirmed tickets will be allowed to enter the railway stations.
– 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.
– All passenger trains will be run with AC coaches only and with limited stoppages. The fare will be equivalent to the ticket fare that is charged for Rajdhani Train.
Further details including train schedule will be issued separately in due course.