New Delhi:
The Indian Railways made special arrangements to set up "May I Help You" booths at major airports across the country to help stranded air passengers during the strike called by Air India employees.
It decided to set up rail counters at important airports including New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune to provide relief to stranded passengers by giving adequate information of train services available and possible accommodation in those trains, according to a senior Rail Ministry official.
Zonal railways were instructed to attach additional coaches on trains, if necessary, to clear the rush.
A computerised rail ticket reservation counter was opened at IGI domestic airport and was being monitored by an Assistant Commercial Manager, said the official.
The Railways also introduced many special trains for the convenience of passengers.
The 2951A/2952A Mumbai Central-New Delhi Rajdhani Special train will run twice from Mumbai Central on May 26 and 29, and its return service from New Delhi on May 27 and 30.
In addition Northern Railway augmented passenger carrying capacity of some trains.
The 4257/4258 New Delhi-Varanasi Kashi Vishwanath Express, 2428 New Delhi-Rewa Express and 4033 Delhi-Udhampur Jammu Mail trains were augmented by one additional second class sleeper coach.
The 2310 New Delhi-Rajinder Nagar Rajdhani Express, 2205 Hazrat Nizamuddin-Dehradun AC Express and 2238 Jammu Tawi-Varanasi Superfast Express trains were augmented by one additional AC 3-tier coach.
The 5013 Delhi-Kathgodam Ranikhet Express was augmented by one additional AC-1-tier cum AC 2-tier coach.
The 2003 Lucknow-New Delhi Swarn Shatabdi Express train was augmented by one additional AC Chair Car coach. The 2231 Lucknow-Chandigarh Express train was augmented by one additional AC 2-tier cum 3-tier coach.
The strike by a section of Air India employees was called off after two days when the Delhi High Court restrained them from continuing with the stir and Government talked tough asking the airline's management to crack down on them.