Indian Railways to restart more trains soon, Piyush Goyal says time to take India towards normalcy

New Delhi: Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said that the ministry will make announcements on more trains in the coming days adding that booking of train tickets will resume at around 1.7 lakh common service centres across the country from Friday.

The minister also said that bookings will also resume at counters at specific stations over the next two to three days, Goyal said during a conversation with his party colleague and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra.

Minister @PiyushGoyal in conversation with @SambitSwaraj ji on steps being taken by the Ministry of Railways and Commerce & Industry to combat COVID-19 crisis.

Watch live https://t.co/ZszOPTBhsl

— Piyush Goyal Office (@PiyushGoyalOffc) May 21, 2020

Goyal added that the department is also studying and developing a protocol to identify the stations so that bookings can resume at counters at those specific stations over the next two to three days.

Goyal also said that 4 lakh passengers have booked tickets for the 200 special trains that will run from June 1 within 2.5 hours of opening of bookings.

The list included popular trains such as Durontos, Sampark Krantis, Jan Shatabdis and Poorva Express are included in the 200 special trains.

Bookings for these trains commenced at 10 am via Railway ticketing arm IRCTC. Only online e-ticketing will be done through IRCTC website or through Mobile App.

Booking will not be permitted through reservation counter railway station, booking agents. The advance reservation period in these special trains will be 30 days.

These trains will have both air-conditioned and non air-conditioned classes. 

No catering charges shall be included in the fare. Provision for pre paid meal booking, e-catering shall be disabled. However, IRCTC shall make provision for limited eatables and packaged drinking water on payment basis only in limited trains, having Pantry car attached, an official release said.

No Linen, blankets and curtains shall be provided inside the train. Passengers will have to carry their own linen for the travel.

Zonal Railways have been instructed to ensure that there are separate entry and exit gates at Railway stations to the extent feasible so that there is no face to face movement of passengers. Zonal railways will be guided by standard social distancing guidelines on stations and trains and observe the safety, security and hygiene protocols.

All passengers must download and use the Aarogya Setu application, the Railway Ministry said.