Travelling Via Rail In India Will No Longer Be The Same After Lockdown, Here Are Some New Rules

The sudden lockdown in the entire nation due to the coronavirus outbreak left many stranded. It is all over the news, thousands of people have been unable to move back to their homes to the lockdown, most of them are migrant workers who were working in different parts of the country. After their workplaces were shut, they had nowhere to go. They had no accommodation, no food, absolutely nothing! These people were trying to reach back home through any means but it was next to impossible. Videos of many walking back to their homes from one city to another went viral on the net too.

However, now the Indian railways have started their services to help these people get back to their homes. With pictures of the railway stations doing rounds on the net, we can say that travelling on a train won't be the same anymore. New rules are out and all the passengers travelling via rail would need to follow these.

Mandatory To Follow Social Distancing

Image courtesy: Indiatimes

According to guidelines issued, all the passengers will have to follow social distancing while travelling on the train.

Sanitizer And Masks

Image courtesy:moneycontrol.com

All the passengers will be provided a sanitizer facility at the stations. It will be compulsory for all travellers to wear masks through their rail journey.

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Body Temperature Check

Image courtesy: Indiatimes

Pictures of health workers checking body temperature of passengers is out on the net. Now all the passengers will be checked on arrival at the stations.

The passengers will need to give complete details of their house, locality, village while booking their ticket which will help in tracing if required.

According to new rules, no linen will be provided on the trains. Also, all the food provided will be only be packaged.

Indian Railways recently announced that all passenger trains for journeys up to June 30 have now been canceled and a full refund will be given to the passengers. According to the statement issued by the railways, only shramik or worker trains and special passenger trains will run. These train will run between Delhi and other stations - Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Tripura.

Another statement issued by the Ministry of Railways read, "Indian Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020 ... Thereafter, Indian Railways shall start more special services on new routes."

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Before the lockdown, Indian railways operated 12,000 trains each day and the total earning was around Rs. 12,844 Crore. Due to this lockdown, Indian Railways has refunded around Rs 1490 Crore.

India imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the world but it took this step after facing a lot of criticism for treating migrant workers this way. Due to the lockdown, these workers were forced to walk long distances from cities to their villages.

The number of coronavirus cases in the country has been on a rise but if it gets in control with time, we can expect railway and other operations to gradually restart with time.