Overview
- Indian Railways set a plan for 18,262 trips by 908 special trains between April 15 and July 15 after a review led by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in New Delhi.
- About 11,878 trips across roughly 660 trains are already notified and open for booking, with the remainder to be announced in stages on IRCTC and at reservation counters.
- The push is designed to cut long waiting lists and raise the number of confirmed seats on busy routes during the summer travel rush.
- Railways has added extra coaches, improved rake use, and deployed real-time crowd control at major hubs including New Delhi, Mumbai, Surat’s Udhna, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru with RPF support.
- Zone allocations show a heavy lift by Central Railway at about 3,082 trips, with large shares for East Central (2,711), North Western (2,245), Northern (2,090), and Western (2,078).