The Indian Railways resumed its passenger trains from Tuesday morning almost 45 days after services were suspended on March 25 in the wake of the nationwide lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Government is running 15 pairs of air-conditioned trains, for which bookings started from May 11 at 6 pm on the IRCTC website. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation had started taking bookings at 4 pm on Monday, but within minutes its website crashed due to heavy online traffic as passengers waiting for over a month-and-a-half immediately started logging into it.
Railways on Monday issued reservation to more than 54,000 passengers within three hours of commencement of booking.
These special trains will run from New Delhi Station connecting 15 important cities of the country — Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
These special trains which have being started presently, have only air conditioned classes — First, Second and Third tier AC. The fare structure for the special trains shall be applicable for the regular time table as Rajdhani trains, excluding catering charges.
Meanwhile, only online e-ticketing will be done through the IRCTC website or through Mobile App. Booking of tickets across the reservation counter on any railway station, through agents, both IRCTC and railway is not permitted.
The railway ministry also said that only confirmed e-tickets shall be booked and no booking of RAC or waiting list ticket and onboard booking by ticket checking staff shall be permitted. Even the current booking, tatkal and premium tatkal booking are not permitted and no unreserved tickets (UTS) are allowed in these 15 pairs of trains.
No catering charges are included in the train fare and provision for pre-paid meal booking, e-catering has been disabled. Also, no linen, blankets and curtains are being provided.
At a meeting with the chief ministers on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that resumption of rail services is needed to rev up the economic activity, but said that all routes will not be resumed and only a limited number of trains would ply.
Meanwhile, the Railways had started to run ‘Shramik Special’ trains from May 1 to transport stranded migrant workers, students, pilgrims and tourists.