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All you need to know about Indian Railways's Clone Train Scheme

Indian Railways is planning to operate 80 new special trains from September 12, reservations for which will begin from September 10.
Last Updated 09 September 2020, 11:08 IST

In what could bring relief to passengers with waitlist tickets, the Indian Railways is planning to run special 'clone trains' in routes with high passenger traffic.

At a media briefing, Vinod Kumar Yadav, Chairman of Railway Board, while talking about various steps taken by Indian Railways amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic, said that the trains that are currently in operation are being monitored to determine which ones generally have a longer waitlist.

"Wherever there is a demand for a particular train, wherever the waiting list is long, we will run a clone train ahead of the actual train so that passengers can travel," he added.

According to multiple reports, the ‘clone trains’ will begin plying in a phased manner in the next 15 days and the Indian Railways will be issuing a notification about it soon.

Here is everything you need to know about the Clone Train Scheme:

1. Although an alternative, a clone train will run with the same train number as the actual train. When a train gets fully booked and has a significant number of waitlisted passengers, the Indian Railways will run another train.

2. A clone train will be operated only if there is a large number of passengers on the waiting list of the particular train.

3. Only passengers with valid waitlisted tickets will be accommodated in the clone trains.

4. A clone train will not stop at all halts of the original train. However, it will halt at key stations.

5. After the reservation charts for the original train is put up, the waitlisted passengers will be informed about their allocated births in the clone train.

6. As per a report by Times Now, the clone trains will be mainly constist of 3-tier AC coaches.

It should be noted that the Clone Train Scheme is similar to the ‘Vikalp Scheme’ under which passengers with waitlisted tickets, when opted for, are accommodated in another train along the same route.

However, according to an Hindustan Times report, under the new scheme, instead of the original boarding and destination stations, nearby boarding and destination stations may be allotted to the passengers.

At present, the Railways is operating 230 special trains connecting major cities across the country. There is a huge demand for tickets in some of these trains as economic activities are picking up in several parts of the country.

V K Yadav said that of the 230 trains that are currently being operated, the ones that are running on reverse routes of the Shramik Specials have 80-85 per cent occupancy, indicating that migrant workers were returning to their workplaces.

The Railways had on last Thursday said it has met all the existing demand of states for Shramik Special trains to ferry stranded migrant workers home, with the last service being operated on July 9.

(With agency inputs)

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(Published 09 September 2020, 08:13 IST)

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