Railways cancels over 100 trains as coronavirus precaution, poor occupancy

The Indian railways on Wednesday cancelled more than 100 trains due to low occupancy and as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus spread, according to official data.

Eleven trains were cancelled each in the west central railway and northern railway routes, 20 each from south central railway and northeast frontier railway, 32 from southern railway, five from east central railway.

Cancellations by other zones were not available at the time of filing.

Railways on Tuesday had 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 the Indian Railways".

Railways had on Tuesday cancelled 85 trains. Central railways cancelled 23 trains, south central railways 29 trains, western railways 10 trains, south eastern railways nine trains, east coast and northern railways five trains each and north western railways cancelled four trains.

The list includes some popular long haul trains.

As a precautionary measure, most railway zones also increased the prices of their platform tickets to discourage large crowds.