Railways cancels all tickets booked for passenger trains till June 30

In a major development which is likely to impact the post-lockdown travel plans of Indians, the Ministry of Railways on Thursday announced the cancellation of all tickets booked for passenger trains for travel on or before June 30.

Passengers with tickets of regular trains which have been cancelled till June 30 will get full refund, the ministry said.

However, the special shramik trains that are being run by the railways to ferry stranded migrants to their hometowns will continue to unction.

The cancellation of all tickets for regular travel comes just two days after the railways opened limited routes for passenger trains.

The railways also said that passengers disallowed from travelling on trains because of symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus will receive full refund for their tickets.

According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, all passengers shall be compulsorily screened and only asymptomatic passengers shall be allowed to enter/board trains.

"If, during screening, a passenger has very high temperature/symptoms of COVID-19 etc., he shall not be allowed to travel despite having confirmed tickets. In such case full refund shall be provided to the passenger," the order stated.

It said that on a group ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel and all other passengers on the same PNR also do not want to travel, in that case full refund shall be granted for all passengers.

In case of a group ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel but the other passengers on the same PNR want to travel, full refund of fare shall be granted to the passenger who was not allowed to travel.