Indian Railways Cancels All Passenger Trains on 'Janata Curfew' Day

New Delhi, March 21, 2020:

Indian Railways have cancelled all the passenger trains on Sunday, keeping in view the 'Janata Curfew' declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

All the passenger trains have been cancelled from 00:00 hours on March 22, i.e. Sunday. The suburban services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad will also be reduced to minimal levels.

The Ministry of Railways said that the decision has been taken in view of the fact that the demand for rail travel will be vastly reduced during the Janta Curfew.

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As per the Indian Railways, all passenger trains originating between midnight of March 21/22 to 2200 hours of March 22 shall not run. However, the passenger train services already on run at 0700 hours on the day will be allowed to run to the destinations.

The Railways department has also directed all the Divisions of the country to ensure that the trains, which are empty could be short terminated, if required.

It may be mentioned here that India recorded a total of 271 positive cases of novel coronavirus on Saturday, from 250 cases a day earlier.

On Friday night, Uttarakhand's Dehradun reported a confirmed case of the virus and in less than an hour, Madhya Pradesh reported four such cases in Jabalpur city. As the number of positive coronavirus cases have surged across the globe, the Government of India is preparing to facilitate conditions for social distancing with the closure of schools, colleges, movie theatres, malls, parks and other public places.

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The Government has now also decided to change the testing criteria. Earlier, testing was limited to symptomatic patients with travel or contact history, and symptomatic health workers with contact history. Now, it has decided to include all the pneumonia cases, regardless of travel or contact history.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) issued a statement on March 20 saying that all the asymptomatic individuals who have undertaken international travel in the last 14 days should stay in home quarantine for 14 days, and that they will be tested only if they become symptomatic (symptoms include fever, cough, difficulty in breathing). All family members living with a confirmed case should be home quarantined too, according to guideline.

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All the symptomatic contacts of laboratory confirmed cases, all the symptomatic health care workers, and all hospitalized patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (fever AND cough and/or shortness of breath) will be tested as well.

India has recorded four deaths till now. Following the coronavirus state, a nation-wide call for a 'Janata Curfew' has been announced from 7 AM to 9 PM on March 22 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Globally, Italy reported a dramatic surge in coronavirus deaths at 627 on Friday, taking the total number of casualties to 11,397. The number of infected people also topped to 275,000.

China reported no new cases even on Friday, sparking a glimmer of hope.

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