A total of 45,533 tickets worth Rs 16.15 crore have been sold so far for special trains for the next seven days, the Indian Railways said on Tuesday. 15 special trains are set to run from today, bookings for which began on Monday. Around 82,317 passengers have booked their tickets so far. On Sunday, the Indian Railways had announced that 15 pairs of special air-conditioned' trains will depart from New Delhi to several parts of the country.
Earlier, Indian Railways said it had issued reservation to more than 54,000 passengers within three hours of commencement of the booking.
"By 9.15 p.m., approximately 30,000 PNRs had been generated and reservations were issued to more than 54,000 passengers," Indian Railways said in a statement.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) had started taking bookings at 4 p.m. on Monday, but within minutes its website crashed due to heavy online traffic as passengers waiting for over a month-and-a-half immediately started logging into it.
The railways issued guidelines on Monday for 15 special trains, which will be operated from Tuesday, asking the passengers to carry their own food and linen, and arrive at stations at least 90 minutes before departure for a health screening.
On Tuesday, the national transporter said installing the Aarogya Setu mobile application was mandatory for the passengers.
The railways will run eight trains on Tuesday -- three from New Delhi terminating at Dibrugarh, Bengaluru and Bilaspur, and one each from Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna), Bengaluru, Mumbai Central and Ahmedabad, which will terminate at Delhi.
These special trains will only have air-conditioned coaches.
Since the trains will be operated amidst the ongoing nationwide lockdown, only the passengers with confirmed e-tickets will be allowed to enter the stations.
The fares of these trains are equivalent to that of the Rajdhani trains and passengers can book tickets up to seven days in advance.
However, no RAC, wait-list ticket or on-board booking by the ticket-checking staff will be permitted, the railways said.
The national transporter had suspended its passenger services in view of the lockdown imposed to check the spread of coronavirus.
Passengers boarding the train at New Delhi Railway Station must note that entry will be allowed only from Paharganj.
(PTI Inputs)
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