COVID-19 Effect: Indian Railways cancels 85 trains including Rajdhani, Duronto for people's safety

The Railways has cancelled 85 trains as precaution against the spread of coronavirus and due to low occupancy, officials said. It has also issued a set of guidelines to zonal railways for its catering staff stating no employee having fever, cough, runny nose or difficulty in breathing "should be deployed in the business of food handling on Indian Railways".

According to officials, the central railways cancelled 23 trains, south central railways cancelled 29 trains, western railways cancelled 10 trains, south eastern railways cancelled 9 trains, east coast and northern railways cancelled 5 trains each, and north western railways cancelled 4



trains.

The Railways till Tuesday has decided to cancel total of 85 trains to “contain the effects of Coronavirus” till March 31. The Central Railway zone has cancelled 23 trains including long distance trains such as the Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express from Mumbai to Delhi and Mumbai to Howrah Duronto Express, among others. 35 trips of 10 trains stood cancelled by the Western Railways, 29 by South Central Railways, 9 by South Eastern Railways, 5 by Northern Railways, 4 by North Western Railways and 5 by East Coast Railways.

As a precautionary measure railway zones like WR and CR have also increased the prices of their platform tickets to discourage large crowds.