200 special trains to run across the country starting 1st June 2020

Ministry of Railways (MoR) after consultation with Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has announced that train services on Indian Railways shall be further partially restored w.e.f. from 01st June 2020. More than 1.45 lac passengers will travel on Day 1 of 200 trains starting on June 1. Tomorrow (i.e. 01st June, 2020) Indian Railways will start operations of 200 passenger services as listed in the Annexure (Link provided below).

As an important step in graded restoration of passenger train services, Indian Railways will start tomorrow 200 trains in addition to the existing Shramik Special trains being to run w.e.f. 01st May and Special AC trains (30 trains) being run since 12th May 2020.

These trains are on the pattern of Regular Trains. These are fully reserved trains having both AC & Non AC classes. General (GS) coaches have reserved sitting accommodation. There will be no unreserved coach in the train. Normal class wise fare will be charged and for reserved GS coaches (General sitting), being reserved, second seating (2S) fare for reserved trains shall be charged and seat will be provided to all the passengers.

At 09.00 hours today, the total bookings of passengers was 25,82,671. Booking of tickets for these trains is being done online through IRCTC website or Mobile App. Indian Railways has also allowed booking of reservation tickets through the reservation counters, Common Service Centers(CSCs) and Ticketing agents w.e.f. 22nd May 2020.

As previously informed, Indian Railways has modified instructions for 30 special Rajdhani type trains started w.e.f. 12.05.2020 and 200 Special Mail Express to be introduced w.e.f. 01.06.2020 (total 230 trains). It has been decided to increase the advance reservation period (ARP) of all 230 Specials from 30 days to 120 days. Booking of Parcel and luggage shall be permitted in all these 230 trains. The above changes have been implemented with effect from 08:00 hrs of train booking date of 31st May 2020 onwards. Other terms e.g., Current booking, Tatkal quota allocation of seats to road side stations etc are to be same as in regular time tabled trains. Booking of Tatkal ticket can be done from 29th June 2020 for journey date 30 June 2020 and onwards. These instructions can also be viewed on the website of Indian Railways www.indianrailways.gov.in under the head commercial circulars in Traffic Commercial Directorate.

Charting & Boarding of Trains:

i. RAC and Wait list will be generated as per extant rules.

ii. No unreserved (UTS) tickets will be issued and no tickets will be issued onboard to any passenger during the journey.

iii. ALLOWED- Along with Fully confirmed and RAC passengers, partially Waitlisted Ticket holders (if in single PNR there are confirmed & WL passengers both) also allowed.

iv. NOT ALLOWED – Waitlisted passengers.

v. Booking of Tatkal ticket can be done from 29th June 2020 for journey date 30 June 2020 and onwards.

vi. First chart shall be prepared at least 4 hours before scheduled departure and second chart shall be prepared at least 2 hours (unlike present practice of 30 minutes) before scheduled departure.

vii. All passengers shall be compulsorily screened and only asymptomatic passengers are allowed to enter /board the train.

viii. Passengers travelling by these special services will observe the following precautions :

1. All passengers must wear face covers/masks at the entry and during travel.

2. The passengers shall reach the station 90 minutes in advance to facilitate thermal screening at the station. Only passengers who are found asymptomatic will be permitted to travel.

3. Passengers shall observe social distancing.

4. On arrival at their destination, the travelling passengers will have to adhere to such health protocols as are prescribed by the destination state/UT.

Cancellation and Refund rule: Railway Passengers (Cancellation of Ticket and Refund of Fare) Rules, 2015 shall be applicable. In addition Refund of fare in case passenger is not allowed to travel due to high fever or symptoms of COVID -19, shall remain applicable.

If during screening at the station a passenger has very high temperature/symptoms of Covid-19 etc., he shall not be allowed to travel despite having confirmed tickets. In such case full refund shall be provided to passenger as under:-

i. On PNR having single passenger.

ii. On a party ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel and also all other passengers on the same PNR do not want to travel in that case full refund shall be granted for all passengers.

iii. On a party ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel however other passengers on the PNR want to travel in that case full refund of fare shall be granted to passenger who was not allowed to travel.

For all the above cases, TTE certificates (as per extant practice) shall be issued to the passenger at the entry/checking/screening point of the station itself mentioning “Number of passengers not allowed to travel due to fever or symptoms of Covid 19 in one or more passengers”.

After getting TTE certificates, TDR shall be filed for refund of not travelled passengers, within 10 days from the date of journey.

Catering: 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. Information to this effect shall be made available to passengers during time of booking ticket.Passengers are encouraged to carry their own food and drinking water. All static catering and vending units (Multi Purpose stalls, Bookstalls, Misc./Chemist stalls etc) at Railway stations will remain open. In case of Food Plaza and Refreshments rooms etc, cooked items may be served as take away only with no sit-down eating arrangements in place

Linen and Blanket:No Linen, blankets and curtains shall be provided inside the train. Passengers are advised to carry their own linen for the travel. The temperature inside AC coaches shall be suitably regulated for this purpose.

Zonal Railways have been instructed to ensure that there are separate entry and exit gates at Railway stations to the extent feasible so that there is no face to face movement of passengers. Zonal railways will be guided by standard social distancing guidelines on stations and trains and observe the safety, security and hygiene protocols.

All passengers must download and use the Aarogya Setu application. Passengers are advised to travel light.