Highlights:
- Indian Railways cancelled all passenger trains until the 30th of June
- The 15 special trains and migrant trains will continue to operate
- Indian Railways will issue a full refund for the tickets cancelled
The Indian Railways has decided to take a stringent step where it has cancelled all passenger trains including express, mail and suburban services for journeys until the 30th of June. For people who had booked their tickets already for the dates will be given a full refund if the trains are cancelled said the Indian Railways in a statement on Thursday.
The cancelled tickets were booked before the lockdown when the Indian Railways was still taking bookings for services for the month of June.
India’s biggest carrier said that people who 120 days before the date of the journey will receive a refund against the cancellations.
The statement, however, clarified that the “Shramik” (worker) trains, which are being run to transport stranded migrant workers, and the “Special” passenger trains, which started running between Delhi 15 cities across India, will continue to operate.
In April, a leading news agency of India reported, the Indian Railways refunded almost Rs. 1,500 crore after 94 lakh tickets were canceled which were booked before the lockdown was imposed in the country. Rs. 830 crore were also refunded against tickets which were canceled for trains scheduled to run between 22nd March and 14th April, which was the 1st phase of lockdown.
Since the 22nd of March, all the non-essential train services including the regular passenger trains have been suspended, which is 3 days before the 1st lockdown was imposed in the country. And as the lockdown was extended until the 17th of May, the Indian Railways stopped taking booking of all normal trains.
Meanwhile, The Indian Railways, on Sunday – 5 days before the end of Lockdown 3.0 – announced that it plans to resume its passenger trains in a phased manner as the Indian Government =is looking to re-start the normal life in the country and boost the economy.
The special trains (15 pairs) have already started and will connect Delhi with cities in Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Tripura and will have minimum stops in between. Also, Indian Railways said that strict rules will have to be followed if anyone wishes to travel via these trains.
The Railways has also run 642 “shramik” special trains as of Wednesday. These trains have transported close to 8 lakh migrants and others stranded amid the coronavirus lockdown back to their home states.
Lakhs of migrants workers were left stranded in different states of the country after the lockdown was imposed and with no jobs, shelter, money or even public transport, they were forced to walk hundreds and thousands of kilometres.
“Before the lockdown, the Railways operated around 12,000 trains every day, transporting Rs 28,032.80 crore worth of goods and earning Rs 12,844.37 crore from passenger fares in the third quarter of 2019/20 alone,” according to PTI.
