Tag Archives: Tejas Express

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has cancelled all three Tejas trains till 30th April owing to a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country. The decision is also taken keeping in mind that a lot of train staff is outsourced, looking at the uncertainty on how and when the lockdown will be lifted. However, no decision is taken yet on the operation of other passenger trains run by Indian Railways.  IRCTC runs three premium, private passenger trains across three routes– Lucknow-New Delhi-Lucknow, Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Kashi Mahakal express connecting Varanasi and Indore. Full ticket fare will be refunded automatically, without any cancellation charges, to all the users/passengers having booked tickets for journey during the above period.

To encourage private investments in the Indian Railways, the Ministry for Railways has prepared an ambitious plan to allow private players to run 500 passenger trains, manage 750 stations and even buy rolling stock from private players. This has been included in the National Infrastructure Pipeline, which has been prepared for the next five years. So far, the Ministry has stated publicly that the government is keen to allow private players to run 150 trains on 100 identified routes. The ministry on Wednesday said the draft request for qualification and the draft concession agreement have been uploaded on the websites of Niti Aayog and Indian Railways for seeking feedback from the stakeholders.

The Railway Board Chairman, VK Yadav has said that Indian Railways is all set to start country’s third private train, Tejas Express on the Indore-Varanasi route later this month. Completely run by the Indian Rail Catering and Tourism (IRCTC), the new train will run three days a week and will be the first Tejas Express which will run overnight. Last year, IRCTC launched its first Tejas Express which runs on Lucknow-Delhi route. The second Tejas Express started operating last month on Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. IRCTC follows dynamic fare scheme for both the trains. Indian Railways also decided to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its routes. Niti Aayog had recently moved a draft document for discussion on private participation in Railways. Indian Railways proposed a plan to include private players in 100 routes across the country.