With the Railways opening online booking for some special trains on Thursday, over 2.37 lakh tickets were booked within a few hours.
“At 16:00 hours, 101 trains were available in the system for booking. 2,37,751 tickets were booked for 5,51,724 passengers,” a spokesperson said.
The Railways will begin running 200 time-tabled trains from June 1, and the booking started at 10 a.m. Thursday. These trains will have both AC and non-AC coaches.
The Railways said it would also restart reservation counters and allow bookings through Common Service Centres and ticketing agents in a graded manner from Friday.
“Opening of all these booking facilities once again will mark an important step in the graded restoration of passenger railway services and making the task of ticket booking easy for all prospective travellers from all parts of India in reserved trains,” it added.
The Railways asked its zones to adhere to standard physical distancing guidelines and observe hygiene protocols in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Zonal Railways have been instructed to decide and notify the opening of reservation counters in a phased manner from tomorrow [Friday], along with dissemination of information about their locations and timings as per the local needs and conditions.” it said.
The Railways will cancel all tickets booked by passengers whose originating and terminating stations fall in Maharashtra because inter-district travel is not allowed in the State. The passengers will be given a full refund.
“The Maharashtra government has informed the Railways that inter-district travel is prohibited within the State... It is, therefore, desired that tickets of all the passengers whose originating and terminating stations fall within Maharashtra be cancelled and full refund given without deduction of any cancellation/clerkage charges,” said an order issued by the Railway Board.
Stating that an SMS should also be sent to the passengers, it added that intra-state booking within Maharashtra will not be permitted.
