New Delhi 21 May 2020. Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said booking of train tickets would resume at around 1.7 lakh common service centres across the country from Friday. Goyal also said bookings would also resume at counters of different stations in the next 2-3 days and a protocol was being finalised in this regard.
“Booking of train tickets will resume at around 1.7 lakh common service centres from tomorrow across the country. Bookings will also resume at counters of different stations in the next 2-3 days. We are developing a protocol to identify the stations…we will also soon announce the resumption of more trains,” Goyal said.
Common Service Centres are physical facilities for delivering e-services of the government at rural and remote locations where availability of computers and internet is negligible or absent.
On a day Railways opened bookings for the 100 pairs of special trains that will run from June 1, Goyal said four lakh passengers had booked tickets in 2.5 hours.
“In the last two and a half hours, over 4 lakh tickets have been booked for second class passenger trains which start from June 1. So many people want to go home. Also, there are so many people who want to return to work in cities which is a very good sign,” the Railway Minister said.
Seventeen Jan Shatabdis, five Durontos and a number of traditionally popular mail or express trains to various parts of India areamong the list of 100 trains to be reintroduced from June 1 in the second phase of graded resumption of passenger train operations in India.
Significantly, Railways also ordered Wednesday that the food stalls and canteens at stations are to be opened, bringing back some normalcy on railway stations.
Goyal also praised Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani for their cooperation with the railways in running the Shramik Special trains for migrant workers and criticised West Bengal and Jharkhand for their non-cooperation.
“Some states did not cooperate with us to run special trains for sending back migrant workers to their homes. I think there are around 40 lakh people who want to return to West Bengal but only 27 special trains have entered the state so far,” Goyal said.
