Indian Railways has provided a huge relief to the passengers as they have restarted their Tatkal ticket bookings for all the 230 special service trains. This service was ceased by the Indian Railways in view of the contagious COVID-19 situation which had created a lot of problems for the passengers who were in dire need to travel for various emergency purposes.

Since the lockdown was announced on March 25 nationwide, the Railways restricted the movement of all passenger trains including mail and express trains.

A notice was issued on May 31 which informed about the tatkal quota service being made available to them for all the special trains which will be started from June 29, a senior Railway Ministry official said. The official stated, “Tatkal bookings were done on Monday for trains commencing from Tuesday.”

Passengers are required to book the Tatkal tickets, a day prior to their travel after 10 am in case of AC tickets and after 11 am to book sleeper class tickets.

Before resuming the service of 200 special trains, last month, the Railways had started the advance bookings of these trains at the railway station reservation counters.

The railways also confirmed that the reservation against the RAC (Cancellation) tickets and those tickets placed under waiting-list will be provided in these trains itself but the passengers who are waitlisted will not be permitted to board the trains. Currently, the Railways is only allowing the 230 special trains to operate and after July 1, these trains will be the only one to function across the country. In an earlier notice issued, the Indian Railways had suspended all the regular trains that were scheduled between July 1 and August 12 in view of the increasing cases of COVID-19 nationwide.

Previously, a spokesperson from the Union Ministry confirmed that for the 200 special mail trains, 30 Special Rajdhani and express trains, the advance period of reservation has been expanded from 30 days to 120 days which would help the passengers to plan their travel accordingly and get some more time to make arrangements.