The South Central Railway's (SCR) first terminating train that departed New Delhi at 4 pm on Sunday arrived with 528 passengers at the Secunderabad railway station at 1.45 pm on Monday.
The New Delhi-Secunderabad AC superfast special train is the first weekly special train service between New Delhi and Secunderabad, which was announced by the Railway Ministry.
SCR General Manager Gajanan Mallya said that in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, elaborate arrangements had been done to handle the passengers at the Secunderabad station.
Apart from cleaning and disinfecting the station ahead of the train's arrival, sanitisers were kept handy for the passenger's use.
Proper markings were done on the platform for guiding passengers to practice social distancing while at the station. On arrival, thermal screening was done for all the passengers at the station. The asymptomatic passengers were advised to undergo home quarantine.
Meanwhile, an Air India Express evacuation flight with 166 evacuees from Oman landed at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Monday night with 166 passengers.
This was the first flight to land in Hyderabad under the second phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, touted to be the biggest ever evacuation exercise of India aimed to bring back Indian nationals stranded in various countries due to COVID-19 lockdown.
After completing all formalities, the passengers were transported to designated locations in the city for a mandatory 14-day quarantine period as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
All passengers were facilitated with safety protocol through a fully sanitised airport terminal. Each passenger/crew was screened by the thermal cameras positioned at the aerobridge exit under supervision of the Airport Health officials (APHO) as per the directives of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare prior to immigration formalities.
Glass shields were provided at each manned immigration counter to avoid any personal contact between the passengers and immigration officers.
With IANS inputs