As India enters the 51st day of lockdown, the Indian Railways has cancelled all the tickets booked up to June 30 for all passenger trains except for Shramik trains and the special passenger trains that started on Tuesday, May 12. A full refund will be given to all passengers whose tickets stand cancelled, the Railways said in a statement released Thursday morning.
Railways had suspended passenger train services since March 22 to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus in the country. Starting this month, Indian Railways arranged special trains for migrant laborers stranded in various states. It has run over 600 Shramik Special trains till now to ferry migrant workers. Starting this week, it also resumed passenger train services by introducing 30 special trains connecting Delhi and other major cities in India.
According to news agency PTI, last month, the Railways refunded around Rs 1,490 crore after 94 lakh tickets, booked before the lockdown was imposed, were cancelled. A further Rs 830 crore was refunded for travel planned between March 22 and April 14, the first phase of the lockdown. However, on Sunday the Railways announced plans to restart passenger trains in a phased manner, five days before the end of the lockdown, as the government looks to re-start normal life.
