Indian Railways: Online Booking Starts from Today; Know How to Book Your Railway Ticket?

Here comes the good news from Indian Railways amid lockdown. Indian Railways plans to restart its passenger trains in a phased manner from Tomorrow (12 May 2020), as per a statement released on Sunday.

How to book your railway ticket?

Ticket bookings will be opened from 4 pm today i.e. on 11 May 2020. Passengers wishing to travel on these special trains can book tickets only on the IRCTC website @https://www.irctc.co.in/ or mobile app. Remember that booking through ticket agents (whether IRCTC or Railways) is not permitted. Counters at all stations, even the ones for platform tickets, will be closed.

It is to be noted that the passenger services, which is suspended since the lockdown will start with 15 "special" trains (total of 30 journeys) departing from Delhi. It will be connecting cities in Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Tripura.

The Railways warned that passengers having confirmed & valid tickets will be permitted to enter the Delhi station. It is compulsory for all passengers to wear face masks, under screening at departure (only asymptomatic people can travel) and maintain social distancing at all times. All trains will run with AC coaches only & will have limited stoppage. Details of train schedule will be issued in due course, said railways.

Railways Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted "Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from May 12, 2020, initially with 15 pairs of special trains connecting New Delhi with major stations across India. Booking in these trains will start at 4 pm on May 11".

More than 20,000 coaches are converted into Covid-19 isolation wards since March & thousands more have been reserved for "shramik (worker)" trains being run every day to return stranded migrant workers to their home states. These services will continue according to the current system and on request of the concerned state governments.

Till now, the Railways has run 366 "shramik" trains since May 1, which carried around four lakh migrants back to their home states. They have been run with strict rules regarding people in each coach, something likely to be followed for restarting passenger trains.

According to Indian Railways, these trains will run as special trains from New Delhi station to the following destinations:

• Dibrugarh

• Agartala

• Howrah

• Patna

• Bilaspur

• Ranchi

• Bhubaneswar

• Secunderabad

• Bengaluru

• Chennai

• Thiruvananthapuram

• Madgaon

• Mumbai Central

• Ahmedabad

• Jammu Tawi