In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the railways have announced cancellations of tickets of all passengers of special trains whose stations fall within the state of Maharashtra after the state government prohibited inter-district travel.
In an order issued on Thursday, the railways announced that all the tickets of the special trains scheduled to run from June 1, 2020, in Maharashtra will be automatically cancelled and a full refund will be provided to passengers. The 100 pairs of special trains, including the Duronto Express, Jan Shatabdi and several popular mail and express trains, are scheduled to begin their journey from June 1, 2020.
The railways stated that till further notice, intra-state bookings within Maharashtra should not be permitted. As per a railway spokesperson, this, however, does not mean that trains cannot originate from stations in Maharashtra. It just asserts that a person cannot board or deboard a train from within the state. For example, a train traversing from Mumbai to Kanpur goes via Nashik, no passenger who has boarded the train from any station in Maharashtra can deboard within the boundaries of the state. Although a passenger can board the train from Nashik and travel outside the state.
The railway board order also stated that passengers should be sent an SMS stating that, "Due to restrictions imposed by Maharashtra government for travel within the state by train, your ticket has been cancelled and a full refund shall be given."
In other news, ahead of domestic flights resuming partial operations, the Centre on Sunday had announced a list of guidelines for any kind of domestic travel (air/rail/inter-state bus). The 12 guidelines advise downloading the Aarogya Setu app to track the coronavirus, mandates face masks during travel, sanitisation of airports, bus terminals, railway stations, thermal screening. It also allows states to develop their own protocol for quarantine and isolation.
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