A lot of misinformation and fake news has flooded social media ever since coronavirus hit India. However, not all that we read on the internet is true and it’s always better to check the facts before believing them. One such message is going viral on social media platforms which claim that all the trains operated by the Indian Railways will be cancelled till March 31. However, the Indian Railways has announced no such thing. The viral screenshot is of March 2020, when the trains were cancelled in the wake of coronavirus. Debunking the fake news, PIB wrote, “It is being claimed in a news that all the trains have been canceled till 31 March. #PIBFactCheck : This news is old. @RailMinIndia has not taken this decision to cancel trains till 31 March 2021. This old news is being shared in the wrong context.”
Last year, the Indian Railways had cancelled all passenger trains on March 22, the day of Janta Curfew. Suburban services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad were also reduced to minimal levels.
The Press Information Bureau launched this fact-checking arm in December 2019, to curb misinformation and fake news prevalent on the internet. It claimed that its objective was “to identify misinformation related to government’s policies and schemes that are circulating on various social media platforms”.
The government however clarified that this claim is fake. The new claiming that the trains would be cancelled from March 30 is old. The Indian Railways has not taken any decision to cancel the trains.
Meanwhile,the Indian Railways has rendered yeoman service during the coronavirus pandemic by transporting 43 lakh migrant labourers, distributing two crore free food packets and making available several hundred coaches to be used as healthcare centres, BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav said on Monday.
Initiating the debate on Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Railways, Yadav said the Indian Railways has been completely changed into a dynamic development-oriented organisation under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last several years.
Hence, the claim is false and there has been no such reports by the government.
