In a significant move, the Indian Railways on Thursday allowed select reservation counters to open at stations from Friday, nearly two months after they were shut due to the coronavirus lockdown, with Railway Minister Piyush Goyal saying "we have to take India towards normalcy".
Goyal also said an announcement on the resumption of more trains will be made soon.
In an order, the railway board said such counters, along with the common service centres, can open from May 22 for booking reserved tickets and the zonal railways can identify stations on which the ticket counters can open.
Goyal said booking of train tickets will resume at nearly 1.7 lakh common service centres across the country from Friday, making the service accessible to those in remote locations where the availability of computers and internet is negligible or absent.
He said the opening of ticket counters at stations will be graded as a protocol needed to be developed to ensure there is no crowding.
"We have to take India towards normalcy. We are developing a protocol to identify the stations where counters can be opened. We have to ensure there are no large crowds gathering at counters to book tickets, so we are studying the situation and devising a protocol towards it," Goyal said. "We will also soon announce the resumption of more trains."
Goyal said the railways, which started the Shramik Special trains from May 1, has run 2,050 such trains since, ferrying 30 lakh migrants, students and other stranded people.
Goyal said the railways has also started bookings for the 100 pairs of special trains with both air conditioned and non-air conditioned services which will begin operations from June 1.
He said within 2.5 hours of opening bookings for the 100 pairs of special trains on Thursday, four lakh passengers had booked tickets. People have also started reverse bookings to come back to work, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)