As India enters its day one of Unlock 1.0, the railways is all set to start 200 partial passenger trains operations from Monday (June 1, 2020). The national transporter said that more than 1.45 lakh passengers will take journey on trains on the first day of it resuming its operation.
The railway further also informed that around 26 lakh passengers booked for from June 1 to June 30. The 200 trains list also include the popular trains such as Durontos, Sampark Krantis, Jan Shatabdis and Poorva Express and more. Railways also said that these will have both AC and non-AC classes and fully reserved coaches.
These train services will be in addition to Shramik Special trains and 30 Special AC trains being run since May 12. Passengers will have to reach station at least 90 minutes before departure for screening and those with confirmed/RAC tickets shall be only allowed to enter the Railway Station and board the train.
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.
However, states like Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra have raised concerns over the rising cases of the coronavirus as the reason behind their opposition to movement of trains.
Andhra Pradesh requested that only 22 trains should come to the state, and instead of the planned 71 stoppages it asked for one halt at an intermediary station along with the terminating station and Jharkhand requested that four trains to the state be dropped, while 20 others have fewer stoppages, reported news agency PTI.