Ranchi: After 10 months of closure, passenger trains will resume operations from the Ranchi railway division from January 2 onwards, a statement issued by the South Eastern Railways (SER) said on Thursday.
The statement said 10 trains — Ranchi-Dumka special, Tatanagar-Hatia-Tatanagar MEMU, Ranchi-Tori-Ranchi MEMU, Ranchi-Lohardaga-Ranchi MEMU (three trains), Kharagpur-Ranchi-Kharagpur special, Adra-Barkakana-Adra MEMU, Hatia-Rourkela Passenger and Hatia-Tatanagar-Hatia passenger — will ply from from Ranchi, Hatia and Adra railway stations.
The passenger train services were shut since March 2020 to comply with the nationwide lockdown norms. Though the railways introduced special trains and festival special trains since July, normal passenger train services remained grounded.
In Jharkhand, lawmakers from BJP demanded the restoration of the passenger trains since October citing the adverse impact on the local economy and the movement of thousands of workers, vegetable sellers and traders to cities like Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and others. Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth had written to Union railway minister Piyush Goyal and the outgoing railway board chairman (cum CEO) Vinod Kumar Yadav demanding urgent reinstatement of the services.