However, the Shramik Special trains for migrants and the passenger special trains which started operations from May 12 will continue operations

After the Centre’s announcement to restart passenger train operations in the form of special Rajdhanis met with resistance at the Prime Minister’s meeting with chief ministers, the Railways has decided to cancel all previous reservations made till June 30 and offer full refund, news agency PTI reported on Thursday.

However, the Shramik Special trains for migrant workers and the passenger special trains which started operations from May 12 will continue operations, it said citing a Railways’ order.

The tickets, which will be cancelled, are the ones purchased during the lockdown period when the railways opened booking for journeys in June.

Regular mail, express, passenger and suburban services of the railways had been suspended from March 25 due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Earlier, all bookings for regular trains were stopped till May 17, till lockdown 3.0 remains in force.

Several states including Bihar and Telangana have expressed their reservations about the Centre’s decision to allow inter-state travel. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said resuming even partial train services “was a mistake” and that his opinion should have been taken since he was a “former Railways Minister”.

Meanwhile, the IRCTC has made changes to its booking system with effect from May 13. It has now started to take the destination address of all passengers to enable contract tracing, if required later.