Additional coaches for Bharat Darshan trains from Dec

MADURAI: Following the success of Bharat Darshan trains, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), which operates these tourist trains, has announced that additional coaches will be attached on a permanent basis. As per a policy decision of the railway board, beginning December, air-conditioned coaches will be attached to these trains in a phased manner.
At present, there are three Bharat Darshan trains originating from Madurai for South Zone, Mumbai for West Zone and Delhi for Northern Zone taking tourists, especially pilgrims, to popular pilgrimage centres across the country. It is left to the IRCTC to augment sleeper or air-conditioned coaches based on popular demand and they have decided to augment one air-conditioned coach starting from December, said L Ravikumar, additional general manager of IRCTC, South Zone.
Based on the response to the air-conditioned coach, the IRCTC will add another in the month of February, he said. “It is always felt from our tourists that Bharat Darshan lacks air-conditioned coaches, hence we decided to augment one ac coach first,” he said.
The railway board has given its approval to augment more coaches to Bharat Darshan trains since operating a 10-coach rake tourist train is not cost-effective due to the fuel cost. Hence, more coaches will be added on tourist trains which will be done once in three months. Further, the fare for Bharat Darshan is also revised from Rs 500 to 800 effective from December 1, Ravikumar stated.
Among the three Bharat Darshan trains, the Madurai-based train has counted more trips with 218 after they were introduced first in 2006. Every fortnight, one departure is made from Madurai with a response rate of 93 to 95%, said L Subramani, manager/tourism of IRCTC.
Madurai is the preferred station to stable this pan-India train since it is the centralised location to facilitate tourists from southern districts. With routing points at Trichy, Erode and Chennai more number of tourists could be catered to, he said. Hence, one of the pilgrim specials – the new initiative of IRCTC – will also be based in Madurai, he said. Though all tourist destinations are kept open while preparing the itinerary, the demand is more for pilgrimage centres as most of the passengers are elderly who want to travel across the country to visiting temples or holy places. In a promising sign, the NRI bookings for these trains are on the rise, he said. “When we started in 2006, there was no booking from abroad but at least 5 to 6% of the bookings for Bharat Darshan are done by NRIs as of now. We hope the percentage will increase in the coming days,” Ravikumar added.