Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said booking of train tickets will resume at around 1.7 lakh common service centres across the country today. He said, people who are in remote locations where the availability of computers and internet is negligible or absent can also access it. The Minister also said bookings will also resume at counters at specific railway stations over the next two to three days. Earlier, Railways announced the operation of 200 trains from 1st June of which booking started at 10 AM yesterday.
The Minister said the railways which started the Shramik Special trains from May 1st has run 2,050 such trains since then, ferrying around 30 lakh migrants, students and other stranded people. Mr. Goyal credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for conceptualising the railways’ isolation coaches for coronavirus patients. He informed, Railways so far has converted around 5,000 coaches into Covid-care centres which will be deployed at 225 stations.
Over 2.37 lakh tickets, having over 5.51 lakh passengers, have been booked after the opening of bookings so far for the 101 special trains out of 200 trains for which booking started at 10 AM yesterday.
Mr Goyal said, people have also started reverse bookings to come back to work. He also said that Railways is taking strict action against agents who use software to book tickets. In a series of tweets today, he said, if an agent approaches a passenger and offers to book tickets, the passenger is requested to complain against the agent using 138 complaint number.
Participating in AIR live phone in program SAMVAAD, a senior railway official said that only confirmed and RAC ticket holders will be allowed to board the train.
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