Planning to travel by train? See Indian Railways` latest COVID-19 guidelines

Indian Railways recently stated that they are presently running a total of 1402 specials train services on an average per day.

New Delhi: Amid the rising COVID-19 cases across the country, a person should check out all the important guidelines before heading out. If you're planning to travel by train in the near future, you should see the Indian Railways' latest COVID-19 guidelines mentioned below.

Indian Railways' latest COVID-19 guidelines:

Recently, the Railway Board chairman Suneet Sharma stated that there's no need for a COVID-19 negative certificate to travel by train. Besides this, the passengers also have to follow the latest COVID-19 guidelines and protocols that have been issued by the Centre and state governments. 

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and related hygiene issues, the Indian Railways had also stopped service of cooked food and replaced the same with Ready to Eat (RTE) meals in trains. 

The COVID-19 related protective items such as masks, sanitisers, gloves etc. and takeaway bedroll kits/items, have been made available for sale through Multi-Purpose Stalls at Stations.

No plan to stop or curtail train services

The Railway Board Chairman Suneet Sharma had recently stated that there is no plan to curtail or stop train services. He also assured the passengers that there is no dearth of trains and that the railways is ready to put them into service on short notice.

"There is no plan to curtail or stop train services. We will run as many services as required. There is no cause for alarm. We can run trains immediately on demand if there is any rush. This rush is normal during the summer season and we have already announced trains to clear the rush," PTI news agency quoted Sharma as saying.

1402 specials train services running on an average per day

The Indian Railways on April 9 said that they are presently running a total of 1402 specials train services on an average per day. A total of 5381 Suburban train services and 830 Passenger train services are also operational. Apart from this, the Railways stated that there are 28 special trains being operated as clones of highly patronized trains with high patronage.

It informed that additional trains are also being run during April-May 2021 to clear rush in Central Railway with 58 trains (29 pairs) and Western Railway with 60 trains (30 pairs). These trains are for destinations having high demand like Gorakhpur, Patna, Darbhanga, Varanasi, Guwahati, Barauni, Prayagraj, Bokaro, Ranchi and Lucknow etc.

Meanwhile, India registered more than 1.60 lakh COVID-19 cases for the second consecutive day, according to the official figures released on Tuesday (April 13, 2021) morning. India recorded 1,61,736 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, besides 97,168 recoveries and 879 deaths.

(With inputs from news agencies)