Piyush Goyal-led Indian Railways is currently running as many as 230 IRCTC special passenger trains on high demand routes.

Unlock 2.0 guidelines for Indian Railways, IRCTC special trains: The Narendra Modi government has issued the fresh set of Unlock 2.0 guidelines that will come into effect from July 1. According to the latest Unlock 2.0 directions by the Ministry of Home Affairs, passenger train services of Indian Railways will be further expanded in a calibrated manner. “Domestic flights and passenger trains have already been allowed in a limited manner. Their operations will be further expanded in a calibrated manner,” reads the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines circular.

Piyush Goyal-led Indian Railways is currently running as many as 230 IRCTC special passenger trains on high demand routes. Out of these 230 IRCTC special trains, 30 are Rajdhani-style trains and the remaining are Mail/Express trains. The Railway Ministry has already said that more IRCTC special trains will be introduced in due course, depending on the demand on various routes.

Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav recently said that it may not possible to run all regular passenger train services in the near future. He added that to meet the demand, more IRCTC special trains will be introduced soon.

Indian Railways has already cancelled all regular passenger train services till August 12, the booking for which was available up to April 14, 2020. The national transporter will provide full refund to all passengers of these cancelled passenger trains. Since March 25, Indian Railways has cancelled all its regular passenger train services in view of the Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic situation.

To assist in the fight against COVID-19, Indian Railways has converted over 5,000 old train coaches into isolation wards and COVID-19 care centres for suspected as well as confirmed Coronavirus patients. These unique modified non-AC train coaches have already been put into use by some states and UTs including the national capital Delhi.