Indian Railways preparing action plan to resume train services at the end of lockdown

On Saturday, an official of the Indian Railways said in statement that no confirmed decision has been made about the re-starting of train services, but soon the authorities will come up with an action plan.
Meanwhile, the railway zones are getting the action plans ready for restoring railway services from April 15. All passenger train services in India have remained stalled ever since the announcement for total lockdown for 21-days was made by PM Narendra Modi in order to control the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Reportedly, train services will be restarted after the Railway Board grants specific approval for every passenger train. The Railway Board has to be given suggestions for phase-wise planning.
The decision regarding the matter of resuming train services was taken in a video conference meeting held recently, chaired by Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal with the Chairman of Railway Board.


However, train services will only be resumed after the Central government and the Group of Ministers (GoM) formed to handle this issue, grant their consent.

News has it that all the 17 zones of the railways are making plans to identify trains and restart services considering the availability of rakes.

According to the latest reports, railways may also perform thermal screening on all passengers and abide by the rules prescribed by the government. On the other hand, senior railway officials have been quoted stating that no fresh orders from the government have been received for resuming railway services from April 15 as the trains were cancelled only till April 14. A solid action plan will only be sent to all the railway zones at the end of this week.

For the first time in its history, the Indian Railways had stalled 13523 trains for 21 days post the announcement of nation0wide lockdown on March 24, Tuesday. Only goods trains were permitted to run for carrying essential goods from one destination to another.