The Indian Railways will resume passenger services gradually with trains to 15 destinations from May 12. Bookings for these trains — all originating from the New Delhi Railway Station — will begin at 4 pm on Monday (May 11) only on the website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Ticket counters will continue to remain closed.
“Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020, initially with 15 pairs of special trains [30 trips] connecting New Delhi with major stations across India. Booking in these trains will start at 4 pm on 11th May,” railways minister Piyush Goyal tweeted.
These trains will run to Dibrugarh (Assam), Agartala (Tripura), Howrah (West Bengal), Patna (Bihar), Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Secunderabad (Telangana), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Madgaon (Goa), Mumbai Central (Maharashtra), Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and Jammu Tawi (Jammu and Kashmir).
Face masks are a must for passengers boarding these trains, which will only have air-conditioned (AC) coaches and charge fares equivalent to that in premium Rajdhani trains, according to a railway ministry official who did not want to be named. People will be screened at the station and those not showing symptoms of the Covid-19 disease will be allowed to travel.
Only passengers with valid confirmed tickets will be allowed to enter the railway stations.