作者： bharat.cn

Nearly two months after it suspended operations of passenger trains over the coronavirus crisis, the railways resumed the services with 15 pairs of trains on select routes from Tuesday.

The national transporter issued specific guidelines to passengers travelling on these trains which included asking them to carry their own food, linen, besides making it mandatory to wear face masks.

Initially, the railways announced the booking of the tickets on the IRCTC website from 4 pm on Monday, but the website crashed due to the huge traffic of prospective passengers.

The services of the portal resumed around 6 pm and in within 20 minutes, the Howrah to New Delhi train was completely booked. By 9.15 pm, approximately 30,000 PNRs were generated and reservations issued to more than 54,000 passengers for the next seven days.

Though the railways had suspended passenger services, it operated over 400 trains from May 1 to May 11 to ferry lakhs of migrant workers following requests from several governments.

A top official said the trains ferrying migrants were operated on requests of state governments and it was not part of Railways’ normal passenger services.

Stations covered by 15 trains

The trains will run at full passenger capacity, but railway zones have been instructed to ensure that there are separate entry and exit gates at stations to the extent feasible so that there is no face-to-face movement of passengers.

For now, the Railways has issued time table for trains to be run between May 12 and May 20. They will run as daily, weekly or bi-weekly trains, as per the time table issued by the Railways. There are no trains on May 16 and May 19.

These trains will run between Delhi and some major cities: Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

On May 12, three trains will begin from New Delhi terminating at Dibrugarh, Bengaluru and Bilaspur. One each will begin from Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna), Bengaluru, Mumbai Central and Ahemedabad, all terminating at Delhi.

On May 13, nine trains will be operated — eight of them starting from New Delhi and terminating at Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna), Jammu Tawi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Ranchi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The ninth is a special train from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi.

The railways will run five trains on May 14 from Dibrugarh, Jammu Tawi, Bilaspur and Ranchi to the national capital and one from New Delhi to Bhubaneswar.

Three trains are scheduled on May 15, two of them from Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai Central and one from New Delhi to Madgaon.

On May 17, when the current lockdown is slated to end, a train is scheduled from Madgaon to New Delhi and one from New Delhi to Secunderabad.

The sole run from May 18 is a train from Agartala to New Delhi while two trains are scheduled on May 20 — New Delhi to Agartala and Secunderabad to New Delhi.

These special trains will have only AC classes i.e. first, second and third AC and the fares will be equivalent to Rajdhani trains.

The Railways has decided to begin select services so that at least the working class can be transported to their destinations.

 

印度就业问题智库最新数据显示，为遏制新冠病毒传播实施封锁后，失业率创记录飚升。

根据私营的印度经济监测中心（the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy ，CMIE）的数据，印度的失业率目前达到27.1％的历史新高，仅4月份就有1.22亿印度人失业。但当局在抗疫和救经济上面临与其他大国不同的两难选择。

印度有着和其他大国不同的管理计算方式。比如在就业问题上，印度官方不发布每月份、季度和年度就业数据，理由据称是为了维护社会和谐。

因此私营的CMIE数据已被广泛接受。

印度失业问题

自3月25日以来，印度全国一直处于封锁状态，以遏制新冠病毒（Covid-19）的感染，造成大规模裁员和大量失业。

印度目前报告了超过67000例感染病例。

进入4月份后，印度失业率达到23.5％，较3月的8.7％大幅上升。防疫封锁使大多数经济活动陷入停顿（医院，药房和食品供应等基本服务除外）。

绝望的农民工，特别是日薪工人，四处逃亡，步行逃离城市回到自己的家乡，这些情况在电视屏幕和报纸等媒体上到处都是。印度非正式工作岗位雇用了90％的劳动力人口，随着建筑业的停工以及城市暂停公共交通，他们首当其冲。

但是，旷日持久的宵禁和企业的持续停工，以及封锁何时结束不确定，有正式的永久性工作的人都未能幸免。

印度媒体，航空，零售，酒店，汽车等各个行业的大型公司在最近几周宣布了大规模裁员计划。专家预测，许多中小企业可能会完全倒闭。

封锁的经济成本

仔细查看CMIE的数据，可以发现防疫封锁对印度的经济造成了重大冲击。

在失业的1.22亿人中，有9130万是小商人和劳工。但是，相当多的领薪工人（约1780万人）和自雇人士（约1820万人）也失去了工作。

专家警告说，疫情封锁的经济成本才刚刚开始升高。

CMIE首席执行官马赫什·维亚斯表示：印度必须权衡其疫情封锁的经济成本。

政府已开始放宽对某些地区或报告感染率较低的地区的限制，而在那些发现感染病例较多的地区，仍实行严格的宵禁。

维亚斯表示说，分区处理是一个很好的起点，但是，时间不能太长。因为印度各地区不能如同在孤岛上运作。人员，商品和服务需要流动性。供应链需要在企业失去流动性之前开始运作起来。

印度的抗疫封锁定于5月17日结束，但一些邦进一步延长了封锁期，没有明确表明整个国家何时可能会从封锁中走出。

Indian Railways is planning to gradually resume passenger train operations from May 12 onwards. Passenger train service will begin with 15 pairs of special trains, a government notification said.

These trains will run as special trains from New Delhi Station to major stations across the country.

These special trains will be run from New Delhi Station to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi, the government notice stated. Few of these trains may not be daily.

The full schedule of these trains will be out on Monday.

Initially, all air-conditioned services will begin on 15 Rajdhani routes and the fare would be equivalent to that of the super-fast train, it said.

Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal also took to Twitter to inform that railway operations will resume with 15 pairs of special trains connecting New Delhi with major stations across India initially.

Bookings for these trains will start at 4 pm on May 11, Piyush Goyal informed.

However, ticket booking counters at the railway stations will remain closed and no counter tickets (including platform tickets) will be issued.

“Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020, initially with 15 pairs of special trains connecting New Delhi with major stations across India. Booking in these trains will start at 4 pm on 11th May,” Union Minister Piyush Goyal said in a tweet.

The government notice said, “Indian Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020, initially with 15 pairs of trains (30 return journeys). These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi Station connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.”

The notification further mentioned that Indian Railways shall thereafter start more special services on new routes, based on the available coaches after reserving 20,000 coaches for Covid-19 care centres and an adequate number of coaches being reserved to enable operation of up to 300 trains every day as “Shramik Special” for stranded migrants.