The Railway Board on Thursday announced that all regular time-tabled passenger train services, which include Mail/Express trains, passenger and suburban services, will be cancelled until August 12. A statement released by the Railways also said that tickets booked by travellers and passengers for the regular trains for journey from July 1 to August 12 will be cancelled.
The statement by the Railway Board is as follows: "It has been decided that regular time-tabled passenger services including Mail/Express, passenger and suburban services stand cancelled up to 12.08.2020. It has also been decided that all the tickets booked for the regular time-tabled trains for the journey date from 01.07.20 to 12.08.20 also stand cancelled,".
The Railway Board also went on to add that the Special Rajdhani and Special Mail/Express train services, which resumed services on May 12 and June 1, while the nationwide lockdown was still in effect, will continue to operate. The statement reads, "Special Rajdhani and Special Mail/Express train services started w.e.f. 12.05.2020 and 01.06.2020 respectively shall, however, continue to operate."
It is to be noted that Indian Railways had earlier suspended the operations of all passenger, mail and express trains from March 25 across the country due to the nationwide lockdown, which was imposed to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus. In order to transport stranded migrant labourers, students, tourists and pilgrims, Railways started operations on the Shramik Special trains from May 1 and has since operated over 4,450 Shramik Special trains to ferry over 60 lakh people across the country.
Earlier in the day, Indian Railways had announced that coronavirus essential items such as masks, bedroll kits, sanitisers will now be sold at railway platforms at the multi-purpose stalls. A senior official issued a statement saying, "Mindful of the fact that passengers travelling during these times might need certain essential items which they would need to buy in case they forget to get it from home, we have directed our multipurpose stalls to sell them. However, we have said that they have to be sold at MRP and no profiteering will be allowed through it,".
The official added that bedroll kits, which were previously provided during the journey by the Railways, will no longer be offered due to the spread of the coronavirus, and will instead be available at the multipurpose stalls. They will be sold both as a kit, which would include a pillow, along with pillow covers, blankets and a face towel, or be up for sale separately at the stalls.