The Western and Central Railways together will be cancelling around 59 trains starting tomorrow in what they claim as ‘poorly patronized’. These comprise 30 trains that start from different railway terminuses and stations of Mumbai; including August Kranti Rajdhani and Duranto trains which has been cancelled by the railways.
On May 6, both Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) announced about the cancellation of these trains apart from even cut shorting the trips from Daily to Tri-Weekly. Sources said that majority of these trains starting from Mumbai are those heading to Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan and even those terminating in various cities and towns of Maharashtra.
This comes at a time when Covid-19 cases has crossed 2.10 crore till now of which more than 48 lakh cases are in Maharashtra. As on May 6, the total number of Covid cases in BMC area is 6.65 lakh, while active cases currently is 56153. While more than 13500 deaths have been registered; the total recovery is touching 5.94 lakh cases.
“We have taken this decision after taking approvals from the Railway Board. We have also reduced frequency of train trips,” said a Western Railway official. In fact the WR authorities have cancelled and revised frequency of train trips ‘until further notice’.
This according to railway officials, would mean that until the Rail Ministry doesn’t intimate them to restore it to the original timetable, these shall be in place. The Central Railway authorities on the other hand have cancelled these trains till June 30.
In April, considering the severity of the situation in the aftermath of the second wave of COVID-19 and also owing to low passenger load, the Indian Railways has decided to cancel train services. These have now been further extended. Other railway zones too have cancelled train trips to different parts of the country. For instance the North Western Railway have cancelled 40 trains and the South Central Railway has also cancelled 10 trains scheduled to run till June 1.
