Indian Railways has started preparations for resuming services post the 21-day suspension after nationwide-lockdown was announced.
As per the PTI, The railways running staff, guards, TTE, safety personnel and other officials have been asked to be ready to resume services after the Coronavirus lockdown ends.
While the report states that no dates have been finalised, the Indian Railways is all set to start services. The trains will start running only after the Railways receives a notification from the government.
According to the report, a “restoration plan” has been issued to all railway zones and a schedule of trains that will be running, availability of rakes and their frequency have also been provided The report said that the government has formed a group of ministers that will be looking into the issue and making decisions.
All 17 zones have been asked to prepare for running their respective services. The trains that are likely to be functional include Duronto, Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains.
With these, 80 per cent of the trains are expected to resume operations come in the next 11 days, the report said.
The government has asked Indian Railways to follow all the protocols that are required at the time of the Coronavirus outbreak and rigorously conduct thermal screening of all the passengers, the report added.
However, the report said that senior officers did not admit to any new orders that were given to Indian Railways. The last order Indian Railways received was to suspend operations till April 14, 2020.
As it was decided, the passenger carrying trains were suspended, while the freight trains continued to run in order to ensure smooth delivery of essentials.