Railways to restore pre-Covid-19 reservation system, allow tickets to be booked 5 minutes before trains depart

Railway passengers can book tickets just five minutes before the departure of trains from Saturday (October 10) onwards as the national transporter is restoring the pre-Covid-19 period reservation system.

The railways said that it has decided to restore the earlier system of preparation of second reservation charts issued between 30 minutes to 5 minutes before the scheduled train departure time from October 10.

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, the railways when started operating special trains, it used to prepare second chart 2 hours for special trains before the departure of trains. Now the railways decided to restore the earlier system of releasing second chart between 30 to 5 minutes before the departure of trains.

The first chart is prepared at least four hours before the scheduled departure of the train. If seats become vacant owing to cancellation, same can booked through ticket booking counters and online till the preparation of the second chart.

Cancellation of already booked tickets was also permitted during this period as per provisions of refund rules, the statement said.

Due to festival rush, the railways is planning to operate around 200 trains between October 15 and November 30.

The Railways has currently suspended all regular passenger trains indefinitely. Regular trains have remained suspended since March 22.

It started operations of 15 pairs of premium Rajdhani special trains connecting Delhi with different parts of the country on May 12, and 100 pairs of long-distance trains on June 1. It also started 80 trains additionally on September 12.