Indian Railways Will Start Regular Trains In These States: Full Details Of Normal Schedule Of Trains

As the daily cases of active Covid-19 patients are falling in numbers, businesses are opening and the economy is steadily reviving.

With restrictions easing out in states, as the country slowly moves towards a post-pandemic normal, national carrier Indian Railways plans to resume the services for normal passenger trains in a phased manner from this month.

This decision comes amid a slew of requests from passengers and states to restart commercial passenger trains, as the demand for the same is increasing.

A railway official states that the decision of starting passenger trains again has been ‘under consideration’.

While the Railways has been meeting its passenger demands even during the pandemic, operating special trains, it is now planning to restart normal commercial passenger trains, this month onwards.

Railways Plans to Restart Passenger Trains

A railway official informs that there has been a slew of requests for resuming passenger trains, from different states and passengers, as the Covid-19 restrictions have been on a track of cooling down.

With the festival season arriving, the demand for train tickets and travel is also rising. Indian Railways is taking care of meeting these demands in the most careful manner by introducing various Festival Special trains and attaching new coaches to existing trains.

Despite doing so, the demand for resuming commercial scheduled passenger trains is high.

Consequently, ‘restarting unreserved passenger trains is under consideration’, states the railway official.

Which States Will Have Normal Schedule Of Trains

They added that these scheduled passenger trains will initially begin for states where demand is the highest, including Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.

Additionally, the passenger train services will resume only after critical assessment and consideration of the COVID-19 situation in these states.

In order to reach the number of bookings to pre-Covid levels, Indian Railways is taking a series of measures to promote the same.

For example, allowing unreserved passengers to book tickets on platforms, restarting the use of monthly seasonal tickets, and announcing offers for passengers to travel during the upcoming festival season, states MoneyControl.

The national carrier is currently running around 2,500 mail and express trains and 1,500 passenger trains across the country, constituting about 75% of the pre-pandemic capacity.

In fact, the number of ticket bookings per day has increased from 5 lakh a day in May to 11 lakh/day in September. Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the per day count was 14 lakh.