Foggy condition to be blamed, says N Railway
The Delhi Government on Wednesday suspended free “Mukhyamantri Teerth Yatra” scheme for senior citizens of the city after it said the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) cancelled scheduled trips December 10 onwards. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he will talk to the Centre to provide trains for the scheme.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the scheme has been suspended for the time being as the IRCTC conveyed to the Delhi Government that rakes were not available for the scheme.
The IRCTC in a letter to the Delhi Government has conveyed that the proposed trains under the scheme stand cancelled from December 10 onwards due to non availability of rakes with the Railways, Sisodia said.
Following the development, Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi, “The pilgrimage of elderly should not stop. They are very happy because of pilgrimage. Those whose tickets were booked must be very sad after cancellation of the trains. But you need not be disheartened. I will definitely get it resumed by talking to the Centre, although it may take some time.”
“I will meet the Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and IRCTC officials and try to resolve the issue of non-availability of the trains for the scheme,” Sisodia said.
Meanwhile, Northern Railway said foggy weather conditions prevailing in north India adversely affected train operations and punctuality. Due to this, many mail/express and passenger trains are running late and delayed trains are affecting availability of rakes for scheduled train. In order to ensure the punctual running of trains, extra rakes are being utilised to run the scheduled trains. A number of spare rakes have also been pressed into service.
“The Assembly elections in Jharkhand are underway from November 30, 2019 to December 20, 2019. The rakes are being utilised for the movement of paramilitary from various parts of the country to Jharkhand to ensure conduct of safe and secure elections,” a railway official said.
“In addition, a number of rakes are also being utilised for de-induction of the forces from Karnataka after completion of the by-election. Rakes are also being utilised for the annual changeover of troops of BSF from Eastern frontier to Western frontier and vice-a-versa,” the official added.
Under the scheme, the Delhi Government provides free pilgrimage facilities to senior citizen on 12 religious circuits.
The Government will explore possibility of covering shorter distance destinations under the scheme through buses, Sisodia said.
As per the schedule planned by the Delhi Government and IRCTC, 30 trains are pending between December 10, 2019 and January 28, 2020. The pending trips include 12 to Rameshwaram and six to Dwarkadhish.
“Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana has been going well with the cooperation of the Indian Railways. We hope that this unexpected difficulty will be resolved soon,” he said.
The scheme was launched on July 12, under which 32,828 elderly persons have gone on pilgrimage in 32 trips so far. The most popular destination was Rameshwaram as 7,865 people (nearly 25 percent of the total pilgrims) visited the place, followed by Tirupati, Dwarkadhish, Vaishno Devi, Amritsar among others.
The last train under the scheme departed on December 7 to Dwarkadhish.
