New Delhi: Nearly 51-days after the services were halted to control the spread of Coronavirus, Indian Railways on Sunday announced that it will gradually resume passenger train operations from Tuesday 12th May 2020.
However, the Shramik special trains will continue to run as per the current system on the request of the concerned state governments.
Initially, Indian Railways will operate 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.
However, booking for reservations in these trains can only be done through IRCTC website (https://www.irctc.co.in/). The bookings can be done from 4 pm on Monday i.e. 11th May.
Indian Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020, initially with 15 pairs of trains
These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi Station connecting 15 important cities of the countryhttps://t.co/tOvEFT1C8Z pic.twitter.com/dvdxKaxshM
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) May 10, 2020
Ticket booking counters at the railway stations shall remain closed and no counter tickets (including platform tickets) shall be issued. 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. Further details including train schedule will be issued separately in due course.
After the initial stage, 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.