While the Indian Railway is gearing up to resume several passenger trains from tomorrow, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao advised the centre against restarting of the trains.
He felt that restoring passenger train operations would derail the containment activities which are in full swing now.
Participating in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s marathon video conference this evening, KCR favoured the halting of train operation till coronavirus was brought under control.
The Indian Railways is all set to run 15 pairs of passenger trains from tomorrow. The trains will start from New Delhi to various state capitals.
Referring to the decision of Indian Railways, the Telangana CM said as the majority of the coronavirus cases were detected from cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad, centre’s decision to operate the train services, however limited they are, would lead to chaos and make containment of the spread of the disease more difficult.
“Under the prevailing situation, it will be difficult to monitor each passenger travelling in the trains. Neither are we equipped to conduct tests for everyone nor can we keep them in quarantine facilities. It will be better if the centre decided against operating passenger trains for now,” he said.
However, the chief minister the PM to declare all districts that do not have positive or active cases as Green or Orange district in order to pave the path for normal life activities to resume. He also wants the centre to reclassify the zones based on the suggestions from the respective states without any delay.