The festive season is around the corner and in order to ease the rush and passenger flow, Indian Railways has announced that they will operate 392 special trains between October 20 and November 30. The destinations will include Kolkata, Patna, Varanasi, Lucknow and others. The trains will cater to the growing demand in the holiday period of Durga Puja, Dussehra, Diwali and Chhatt Puja.
Ticket prices will have add-on &lsquospecial charges&rsquo, making the cost go up by around 10-30 percent compared to other previous tickets.
As per the usual SOPs, several guidelines and protocols have to be maintained, like maintaining social distance, COVID-19 negative test, no spitting, etc.
These trains will run for a period of 40 days only, in addition to the special trains that have been deployed by the national carrier. At present, some 660-odd mail and express trains are running while all regular trains have been suspended indefinitely in view of the pandemic. All regular passenger trains have been suspended indefinitely since March.
The Railways had operated 15 pairs of premium Rajdhani special trains connecting Delhi with different parts of the country on May 12, and 100 pairs of long-distance trains on June 1. It also started 80 trains additionally on September 12.