Amid Covid surge, Railways cancels slew of premium trains from May 9

The Indian Railways on Thursday cancelled a slew of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto Express' trains from May 9, stating low patronisation and rising coronavirus cases as the reason behind the decision.

According to Railway Ministry officials, the railways has decided to cancel the Shatabdi, Rajdhani, Duronto, Vande Bharat, Jan Shatabdi Express trains from May 9 until further orders.

The to-and-fro services of eight Shatabdi Express, two Rajdhani Express, two Duronto Express and one Vande Bharat Express are among around 28 trains that have been cancelled "till further advice" by the Northern Railways.

Among these are Shatabdis originating from Delhi to places like Kalka, Habibganj, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Rajdhani trains from Delhi to Chennai, Bilaspur, Duronto trains to Jammu Tawi and Pune.

Poor patronisation of once popular trains also indicates that a lesser number of people are travelling amidst the surge in coronavirus cases, officials said.

"The Northern Railways has decided to cancel the following special trains due to poor patronisation and a surge in Covid-19," a NR spokesperson said.

The Central Railways has cancelled 23 passenger trains. These include Nagpur-Kolhapur special up to June 29, the CSMT-Kolhapur special up to July 1, the CSMT-Pune special up to June 30.

Coronavirus cases and deaths in India hit a record daily high with 4,12,262 new infections and 3,980 fatalities being reported, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 2,10,77,410 and the death toll to 2,30,168, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

Registering a steady increase, the active cases have increased to 35,66,398 comprising 16.92 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has dropped to 81.99 per cent,the data showed.