Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the country has entered the Unlock 4.0 stage on Tuesday with many relaxations in terms of travel and businesses. According to sources, the Indian Railways might also soon announce the running of 100 trains in the coming days.

The Railways has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Home Affairs and sought approval to run trains. The trains will be announced to run as soon as the Home Ministry gives it a green signal. 

The Railways, in close coordination with the states, will hold discussions and assess the situation and requirements. Only then, rail connectivity will be resumed in the country and passenger movement with certain guidelines will be allowed.

The Railways also plans to start some sub-urban and local trains to ease movement within cities and states. Currently, 230 trains are plying, however, not all parts of the country are connected by these. The Ministry of Railways has already talked about the resumption of services in a phased manner.

There was already a high demand for trains to resume services due to seamless passenger movement after certain relations in the corona-induced lockdown. Now that the Home Ministry has allowed the Metro rail services to resume from September 7 under Unlock 4.0 guidelines, more trains are expected to resume.

This decision could also be induced by the advent of the festive season in the country when the demand for trains increases. Therefore, the Railways is also trying to normalise train services at the earliest. According to information received from an RTI, the Indian Railways has canceled more than 1.78 crore tickets since March.

During this period an amount of Rs 2,727 crore was returned. The Railways had suspended its passenger train services from March 25. In this way, for the first time, the Railways had refunded more than what it earned from ticket booking.