Railways dismisses claims regarding restart of service

The Railway Board has decided that all train tickets booked on or prior to April 14 for regular timetabled trains should be cancelled and full refunds generated. Some reports suggested that the train services are unlikely to start until mid-August. However, railways have rejected all such claims.

New Delhi: Soon after the Ministry of Railways issued a circular to the zones asking them to cancel all tickets booked on or before April 14 and to generate full refund of tickets, some reports suggested that the train services are unlikely to start until mid-August.

However, Railways rejected any such claims while saying that the decision over resumption of passenger train services is yet to be taken.

"There is no connection between the cancellation of train tickets and resumption of passenger train services. It would be wrong to say that no trains would run till mid- August. Whatever decision will be taken, it would be in consultation with Ministry of Health and Ministry of Home Affairs. But no decision has been taken yet," a Railway Official said to ETV Bharat.

In the official statement of Railways, dated June 23, 2020, it was stated, "Ministry of Railways has decided that all train tickets booked on or prior to 14th April 2020, for the regular trains, should be cancelled and full refund generated as per provisions contained in the letters issued earlier."

Read:Railways cancels all tickets booked on or before April 14

Currently, Indian Railways is operating 230 mail/express trains across the country, including 15 pair of Special AC trains from May 12 and 200 time-stamped trains from June 1.

"As the passenger trains are not running currently, so we decided to cancel all the prior booked tickets," said the Railway official.

While referring to the media reports, Rajesh Dutt Bajpai, Railways Spokesperson, said, "These are two separate issues. If we start the passenger train services, we'll start it putting afresh."

Railways had allowed 120 days advance booking of tickets. In the current rules of Railways, it has been decided that if any train got cancelled, the passenger would automatically get full refund. Earlier, Railways cancelled the operation of all regular trains till June 30.

As per the sources, Ministry is also planning to operate more such trains which will be branded as "Special" ones, similar to the currently running mail/express trains, to meet the demand.