More than 3700 trains and numerous flights will be cancelled on March 22 to keep up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call of the country observing a 'Janata Curfew', or people's curfew.
Indian Railways will cancel all passenger trains whose time of origin falls between 0000 hours and 10 pm on March 22. This will lead to cancellation of approximately 2400 trains.
In addition, all those trains, which will be empty can also be short terminated on March 22.
All long-distance mail, express and inter-city trains, whose time of origin falls between 4 am and 10 pm of March 22, will also not run. This will mean cancellation of nearly 1300 such trains.
Railways have also said that suburban services in Mumbai, Secunderabad, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai will be reduced to a bare minimum to only cater to essential travel requirements.
"Adequate arrangements may be made to facilitate hassle-free refund to passengers affected by train cancellations," the Railway board said in an order to all Railway zones.
Delhi Metro, which witnesses around 60 lakh passenger journeys in a day, has also decided to shut its operations for the entire day on Mar 22.
In the case of airlines, GoAir, the fourth-largest airline with a market share of 10 percent, will not operate any flight on March 22 in a show of support to Janata curfew call.
"GoAir will protect all the PNRs dated March 22, 2020 in view of the Janata Curfew for a period of one year under the “Protect Your PNR” scheme. Passengers can contact GoAir at any time over the next one year to redeem their ticket on ANY GoAir flight on any date with no charges being levied," GoAir said in a statement.
IndiGo, the largest airline with 48 percent share in domestic market, will operate 60 percent of its domestic flights on March 22. Going forward, the Gurgaon-based airline has decided to operate 25 percent fewer flights on the domestic network.
"Going forward, responding to the various travel restrictions imposed worldwide, most of our international flights are suspended and additionally, given the reduction in domestic demand, we are trimming our domestic India operations by approximately 25% for now. In this fluid situation, IndiGo will continually review operations to match capacity to demand," IndiGo said.
Other airlines will also operate with a reduced network on March 22.
