Indian Railways to run 500 special trains to clear Holi rush

New Delhi: In order to clear the extra rush of passengers, the Indian Railways has decided to run 500 special trains during Holi. The Indian Railways has released a list of special trains for West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and UP.

This year Holi is being celebrated on March 2. 

The additional trains by IRCTC will be running across Delhi, UP, Mumbai, Jammu, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Eastern Railways on Tuesday issued a statement saying that it will run 54 pairs of special trains during Holi to clear the festive rush.

Out of 54 pairs of Holi special trains, 5 will run between Howrah – Muzaffarpur, 4 between Howrah-Ramnagar and 45 between Bhagalpur – Saharsa stations.

The move is likely to benefit more than 7 Lakh passengers as they will now be able to enjoy the Holi festivities with there dear ones by reaching home ahead of the festival.

Railway officials said that this year, 60 more trains will run as compared to last year during Holi.

Last year, 440 special trains were put on tracks to clear Holi Rush

Last year, more than 6 lakh rail passengers benefitted with the special trains.

Railway's focus this year is to cater to the huge demand for train reservations for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

As per reports, the Central Railway will run 26 special trains, Western Railways 4, Northern Railways 270, NCR 4, NER 16, WCR 10, ER 10, ECR 140, SECR 4, SWR 4, SE 8, and SCR to run 2 special trains.

Meanwhile, the Indian Railways recently said that it will now focus more on upgrading the facilities of the second class and third class rail coaches, instead of adding more facilities in premium trains like Rajdhani or Shatabdi Express.

The announcement was made by Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.
 
Goyal’s announcement came a few weeks after Budget 2018, where Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allocated a record Rs 1.48 lakh crore for the national transporter to raise its carrying capacity and improve the train travel experience.
 
Of this, Rs 1.46 lakh crore is the capital expenditure, while Rs 2,028 crore is to reimburse operating losses on strategic lines and reimburse Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation for the operational cost of e-ticketing.