Postpone all journeys, appeals railways amid COVID-19 fear

 In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic gripping the country with 285 confirmed cases on Saturday, the Railway Ministry has asked the people to "postpone all journeys" as a number of COVID-19 positive persons were found travelling in trains.

The railway ministry in a tweet said, "Railways has found some cases of Coronavirus infected passengers in trains which makes travel risky. Avoid train travel as you may also get infected if your co-passenger has coronavirus. Postpone all journeys and keep yourself and your loved ones safe."

The appeal from the national transporter comes in the wake of the spike in the number of positive cases in the country.

On Saturday, the railways deboarded two passengers, a Delhi based couple from Bengaluru-New Delhi Rajdhani Express at Kazipet railway station, taking the total number of passengers deboarded to 12 in the last couple of days.

As a precautionary measure, the Indian Railways has already cancelled over 245 pair of trains and also increased the prices of the platform tickets to Rs 50 from Rs 10. In a bid to stop the overcrowding at the railway premises, the railways on Saturday also relaxed the rules for the ticket refund rules for counter generated tickets.

The IRCTC on the other hand has also stopped serving food on several trains and also announced that food plazas will remain closed till further notice. The railways had earlier removed the curtains and blankets from the airconditioned coaches as a part of precautionary measure to stop the chain of infection of COVID-19. IANS