About three crore passengers have travelled through the South-Central Railway (SCR) network during the festival season from the 1st of last month till the 10th of this month. The SCR authorities have informed nearly eight lakh additional passengers travelled in comparison to last year during the same period.

The SCR zone has operated 860 special train services during the festival season in addition to the regular train services to clear the extra rush of passengers. This is 37 per cent higher than that of the 626 special trains operated during the same period last year.

During the festival season of Dussehra, Diwali and Chhath puja, huge numbers of passengers travel towards Eastern states like West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar among others and Northern States like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi. These special trains have been operated on popular routes from major stations like Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Kacheguda to destinations like Shalimar, Jaipur, Hisar, Gorakhpur, Shirdi, Nizamuddin among others.

The authorities also informed that the SCR made extensive arrangements for safe and hassle-free travel by rail users including operating additional ticket counters at major stations, strengthening the deployment of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), ensuring sufficient food items at catering stalls, extensive CCTV monitoring, an awareness campaign to the public on facilities and frequent announcements, setting up of signage boards and temporary shelters in circulating areas among others.