PremiumIndian Railways may start to operate more special trains in the coming days. A proposal regarding the same has been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs by the Railway Ministry.
A report published in the Hindi daily Hindustan has cited sources from Railway Ministry and according to them before starting the services of these special trains on the specific routes, a plan is being prepared on the number of passengers, prepartions at the railway stations for the proper scanning of passengers who will board these trains.
However the railway officials have not said anything regarding the stoppages or fares of these additional special trains.
Indian Railways will put special emphasis on the regular sanitization of the coaches of special trains and passengers will need to come 90 minutes in advance to board these trains after proper scanning at the stations.
These passenger trains will have an Advance Reservation Period(ARP) of 120 days and also tickets can be booked under Tatkal quota.
Also a report published earlier in the Mint Railway Board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav said," “For some trains on reverse directions—from UP, Bihar to Mumbai, West Bengal to Mumbai, occupancy is increasing day by day. This is an indicator of picking up of economic activity. We are monitoring the occupancy of these trains. We are talking to states govt. We are keeping close watch on the covid spread," Yadav told reporters in a press briefing.
“Keeping all these things in view--requirement of trains, occupancy, status of covid-19 spread…we are in process of finalizing list of trains. In the coming weeks, or 10 days we will be finalizing more trains, depending on these requirements," he said.
Here are the tentative list of the special trains that may soon start operations after getting the required clearnace from the Ministry of Home Affairs:
Trains from Delhi
New Delhi-Amritsar
Old Delhi- Ferozepur
Delhi Sarai Rohilla-Porbandar
Delhi-Bhagalpur
New Delhi-Chandigarh
Delhi-Ghazipur City Train to Ballia
Jodhpur-Delhi
Kamakhya-Delhi
Dibrugarh-New Delhi
Gorakhpur-Delhi
Indore-New Delhi
Muzaffarpur-Anand Vihar, this train will go to Old Delhi
Habibganj-New Delhi
Lucknow-New Delhi
Madhupur-Old Delhi
Trains via Delhi
Kota-Dehradun-Nanda Devi
Dibrugarh-Amritsar
Dibrugarh-Lalgarh
Muzaffarpur-Porbandar
Yeshwantpur-Bikaner
At present Indian Railways operating 230 (115 pairs) of special trains across the country.
Earlier, in the backdrop of COVID-19, the Indian Railways has decided to suspend the regular train services till August 12.
However, as a result of the 120-day advance ticket booking facility, booking was done in trains till August 12. The tickets amount was refunded by the Indian Railways by cancelling the regular time-tabbed trains till June 30.
