(TAN): The Indian Railways has cancelled all tickets for regular passenger train services booked for travel up to June 30, reports said.
The Railways reportedly said full refunds will be given to all those passengers whose tickets were cancelled. The tickets that were cancelled were reserved prior to the lockdown, when bookings for journeys in June were still open – those who booked tickets 120 days before the date of travel will be compensated against cancellations, as per reports.
According to reports, all regular passenger trains, including mail, express and suburban services have been suspended under further notice from the government, the railway ministry said. However, the cancelled trains do not comprise the Shramik Special trains and the 30 special passenger services that were started earlier this week between Delhi and 15 major stations across the country, reports said.
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While the Shramik Special services were reportedly introduced to ferry migrant labourers from different parts of the country to their home states, the 15 pairs of passenger special trains meant for transporting people stranded in various corners of India are running on 15 different routes.
The national transporter had suspended passenger train services from March 22 since the lockdown started to slow the spread of COVID-19. It had reportedly stopped taking bookings for all regular trains from April 14.
The Indian Railways gradually resumed passenger train services earlier this week with 30 special trains running from the Indian capital to major stations all over the country including Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi for a total of 30 return journeys per day.
The ministry said the provision of Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) will not be available in the special services. The waiting list limits have also been modified, while the provision of tatkal and premium tatkal have been made invalid. These changes will be effective for travel from May 22, booking for which will begin from May 15.
The railways arranged special trains for carrying migrant workers starting this month – around a million migrant labourers have so far been transported to their home states in 800 Shramik Special trains, the ministry said.
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