No rail travel within Maharashtra, tickets to be cancelled, says railways

Tickets of passengers whose originating and terminating stations are in Maharashtra will be cancelled, the Indian Railways has said.

Passengers wanting to travel by trains within Maharashtra will not be permitted to do so. Inter district train travel within Maharashtra will not be allowed from June 1, the railways ministry said in a notification Thursday evening.

Migrants arrive at board a Shramik Special train to Uttar Pradesh from the railway station in Patiala, Punjab. (Bharat Bhushan/HT File Photo)

Tickets of passengers whose originating and terminating stations are in Maharashtra will be cancelled, the notification said.

“Maharashtra government has informed Railways that inter-district travel is prohibited within the state of Maharashtra. It is therefore, desired that tickets of all the passengers whose originating and terminating stations fall within Maharashtra be cancelled and full refund be given without deduction of any cancellation charges. It is desired that till further orders, inter-state booking within Maharashtra should not be permitted.” the notice read.

However, passengers wanting to travel outside Maharashtra will be permitted to travel.

Indian railways will commence operation of 200 passenger trains from June 1 across India. The trains will be operated alongside Shramik special trains that are being used to evacuate migrant workers.

According to an earlier order, booking for the tickets started on Thursday morning and were only to be available on the Indian Rail Catering Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.

However, late Thursday evening, the Railway Board said reservation counters, common service centres for booking reserved tickets will open on Friday. Zonal railways will decide the number of counters to be opened as per requirement.