Passengers arriving by the special train from Sabarmati railway station (Gujarat), which reached New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS) on Wednesday morning, expressed delight over being able to return to their homes and meet their family members after close to two months.
One of the passengers, Vandana, who arrived in the national capital from Ahmedabad told , "I was stranded for 55 days and was staying at my relative's place. I am very happy and also thankful to the Railways for arranging these trains. I tried to apply for a ticket for about 3 hours and luckily I was able to secure a seat."
She further added that the special trains will help people in getting their lives back to normal.
Another passenger, who had come from Jaipur, is scheduled to board a train for Chennai today evening and urged the government to introduce more such measures to help the stranded in other states.
"I am lucky to be going home and will be with my parents. I have come here from Jaipur and will take the train today from here to Chennai. I also think that more such measures need to be taken by the government to ensure all people get relief, many of my friends are still stuck in Jaipur away from their families as they could not get the ticket," he said.
Trains originating from Rajendra Nagar railway station, Patna (Bihar) and Mumbai Central Railway station also reached NDLS.
Passengers deboarding from these trains too expressed satisfaction with the journey and on being finally able to return home after a long gap.
Authorities had made arrangement for the screening of all passengers deboarding the trains which reached the national capital.
The Indian Railways had partially resumed its passenger train operations from Tuesday after over one and a half months of halt owing to the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.
Initially, the Railways is running 15 pairs of trains and booking for these trains started from Monday.
These trains will be run as special trains connecting New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad, and Jammu Tawi.
( With inputs from ANI )