COVID-19: Indian Railways to cancel tickets for travel till June 30 on regular trains:

Special trains to continue services, Railways to record destination address of passengers

Migrant labourers from Punjab line up for tests at a railway station platform after arriving in their home town Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh, India, Thursday, May 14, 2020.Image Credit: AP

New Delhi: The Indian Railways has decided to cancel all old bookings for regular trains scheduled till June 30 and provide full refund for it.

However, the Shramik Special trains which started from May 1 and the special trains which started operations from May 12 will continue to run, an order from the railways said.

The tickets, which are to be cancelled, were booked during the lockdown period when the railways was allowing bookings for journeys in June, PTI reported,

Regular mail, express, passenger and suburban services of the railways had been suspended from March 25 due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Earlier, all bookings for regular trains were stopped till May 17, till lockdown 3.0 remains in force.

Destination address of passengers recorded;

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has started taking the destination address of all passengers, booking online tickets.

The Indian Railways has said that it will help in contact tracing if required later.

“With effect from May 13, IRCTC has started taking the destination address of all passengers, booking online tickets. This will help us in contact tracing if required later,” said Indian Railways officials.

The Ministry of Railways is currently running 15 pairs of passenger trains with AC coaches and limited stops to facilitate the movement of people during the lockdown.

The Railways is also running “Shramik special” trains after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently granted permission for movement of stranded citizens including migrants labourers, workers, students, tourists to return to their native towns.

Passengers arrive in Bengaluru;

Around 1,000 passengers arrived in Bengaluru from Delhi on Thursday on board the first train to Karnataka since limited rail services resumed in the country, officials said.

Soon after arrival at the Bengaluru City Railway Station, the passengers were screened for COVID-19 on the station premises itself, the officials said.

The train that left Delhi on Tuesday at 9.30pm was scheduled to arrive at 6.40 am on Thursday but was delayed by 40 minutes.

According to a senior railway official, the Bengaluru civic agency along with the Karnataka Health Department had set up 10 health check-up counters to screen the passengers.

- with inputs from agencies