Piyush Goyal says students can travel in Chennai suburban trains from 15 Feb, advises strict adherence to COVID guidelines

Students in Chennai have been permitted to travel in suburban trains from 15 February. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted, “Students will now be able to conveniently travel along with the Chennai Suburban Rail Network from 15 February, 2021.” He further wrote that students are requested to adhere to all standard COVID-19 safety protocols while travelling in the suburban trains.

📚 Students will now be able to conveniently travel along the Chennai Suburban Rail Network from 15th February, 2021.

😷 Students are requested to adhere to all standard Covid-19 safety protocols.

🚊 Railways strives to deliver safe & convenient travel to all passengers. pic.twitter.com/ksKPKVVVTY

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) February 12, 2021

According to a report in NDTV, both male and female students will be allowed to travel in trains throughout the day, including peak hours. However, they will have to carry a valid photo identification card issued by their educational institutions and produce these while purchasing tickets or passes. In the course of their journey, they will have to produce the tickets along with their IDs in the course of an inspection. According to a report in Business Line, the South Railways has permitted a phased opening of services to various categories of passengers on Chennai’s suburban services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report in The Hindu, a note approved by the general manager and issued by the commercial department of Southern Railway also stated that students studying in various colleges could travel at any time of the day in the workmen special trains, without any peak-hour restrictions in pace for common people. However, there will be random checks to verify the genuineness of ID cards produced by the students, with the respective college authorities.