The railways is preparing to ferry around 16 crore passengers in the next 30 days to clear the festival rush, an official of the railway board said. This will include about 10 lakh additional passengers to be carried by trains which were introduced last year during Chhath.

East-bound trains will conduct more than 250 trips to and from Bihar, West Bengal and UP during Durga Puja, Diwali and Chhath festivals.

“We have planned to run more than 400 trips of around 40 special trains over the next 30 days. We are prepared to carry around 16 crore passengers during that time overall,” the official said, adding, “We have also taken several measures to manage the rush during that time.”

Eleven special trains will be run from Bihar, six trains from Uttar Pradesh, one from Jharkhand and three from Bengal. On top of this, railways will also run half a dozen special trains from Delhi to UP, Bihar and Bengal on a daily basis, the official said. The frequency of some trains will also be increased to clear the rush.

Some of the special trains include Gorakhpur-Anandvihar Special Express, Katihar-Delhi Humsafar Express, Darbhanga-Jalandhar Antyodaya Express, Udaipur-Pataliputra Humsafar Express and Allahabad-Anand Vihar Humsafar Express.

Another official said that the railways is planning to have additional ticket counters to ensure the availability of tickets, boards with train information on them displayed prominently on platforms and proper announcements so that there is no confusion on platforms.

Additional personnel like ticket checking staff, Railway Protection Force and volunteers will be deployed to manage the rush of passengers. Staff will also be deployed at foot-over-bridges to avoid overcrowding, the official said.

Doctors and ambulances will be on standby at major stations to attend the passengers, he assured.