The railways on Tuesday said it was mandatory for those travelling via the 15 ‘special trains’ to download the government’s Aarogya Setu mobile application.
The announcement, made through a tweet after May 11 midnight, comes even as the guidelines issued by the railways on Monday said that all passengers were “advised” to download and use the app.
“Indian Railways is going to start a few passenger train services. It is mandatory for passengers to download the Aarogya Setu app on their mobile phones, before commencing their journey,” the Railways had tweeted, along with links to download the application.
Meanwhile, the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Delhi government also issued on Tuesday a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which stated that all the asymptomatic persons coming into Delhi would be allowed to go to their respective homes. “Further, they would be requested to download the Aarogya Setu app on their mobiles,” it said.
So far, about 9.8 crore people have downloaded the app, which saw a controversy over privacy and data security issues. The contact tracing application is supposed to alert users in case they come in close contact with a person infected with COVID-19.
The railways on Sunday announced plans to start 15 pairs of special trains from May 12 onwards. They will run from New Delhi, connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
