The South Central Railway (SCR), like other railway zones across the country, has cancelled almost all its trains — passenger, long-distance and suburban services, from Saturday midnight till Sunday night (10 p.m.) to prevent further spread of Covid-19 and in view of ‘People’s Curfew’ call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“About 80% — more than 650 — of 720-odd trains run by SCR everyday are going to be shut down. Suburban trains may be running skeletal services early in the morning and late in the night. Only those trains starting before 7 a.m. on Sunday will be running. About 3,700 trains across the country will be affected,” said senior railway officials.
Passengers alighting at stations en route from trains already on run during the period and wishing to stay at the station would be accommodated in waiting halls, rooms and concourse. Adequate arrangements would be made to facilitate hassle-free refund to those cancelling tickets, they said.
While the decision was taken by the Railway Board, SCR General Manager Gajanan Mallya had his own strategy session with top officials to take stock of the situation following the reports of more patients suspected of carrying voronavirus travelling in trains.
While all 10 Indonesian preachers with the contagion symptoms had travelled by AP Sampark Kranthi Express from Hazrath Nizamuddin to Ramgundam in a sleeper coach on their way to Karimnagar, another passenger suspected of having the virus symptoms was deboarded at Dhone after he had gone onto the same train moving towards Hazrath Nizamuddin, from Kurnool.
Senior railway officials said the patient was taken off the train after being alerted by AP health and medical department about his travel. “The entire coach was detached from the train and was fumigated,” they said and admitted that long-distance trains had become potential carriers of the virus in the last few days when the entire focus was on airport arrivals.
“Foreign travellers were taking our long distance trains taking advantage of the poor scrutiny. We realised that one of the COVID-19 patients at Visakhapatnam had travelled on ‘Garib Rath’ Express from Secunderabad on March 18. We are now tracing out the other co-passengers to check on them,” said senior officials.
