Railways may begin services to smaller towns along with major cities that Rajdhani trains cater to now
The Railways will begin issuing waitlisted tickets from May 22. An order issued on Wednesday applies not just to the 15 existing trains, but also "those that will be notified in due course of time", indicating that expanding the service through mail, express and chair cars is on the cards.
The railways has put a cap on the waiting list -- up to 100 for AC 3 tier, 50 for AC 2 tier, 200 for Sleeper Class, 100 for chair cars, and 20 each for First AC and Executive Class -- shortening queues for confirmed tickets.
The changes will come into effect for tickets booked from May 15 for journeys beginning from May 22, the order read.
Before the lockdown, the railways operated around 12,000 trains every day. Since May 1, it ran 366 special trains for migrant workers from different corners of the country.
On Monday, nearly six weeks after the lockdown started, the home ministry announced that a limited train service will begin from Tuesday.
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".
A list of rules, emphasizing social distancing and screening of passengers before boarding, was also issued.
The list of destinations for the trains, starting from New Delhi included Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad, and Jammu Tawi a statement from the Railways said.
So far there is no order from the railways to begin more services but today's order indicated that it could begin services of non-air conditioned trains.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)