In the wake of the lockdown extension announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday as India has been strengthening its measures to combat the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in its territory, the Central government announced that the railway and aviation services across the country would remain suspended till May 3rd, 2020 - the newest deadline of the extended lockdown.

According to the reports, the Indian Railways has suspended all of its passenger services till May 3. In the statement issued by the Railways, it said that the passenger train services operated by the Indian Railways including premium trains, mail/express trains, passenger trains, suburban trains, Kolkata Metro rail, Konkan Railway shall be remain canceled till 2400 hours of May 3rd, 2020, in a continuation of the measures taken in the wake of COVID-19 lockdown.

With the view of keeping the movements of essential goods across the country, the Railways asserted that the goods and parcel trains would remain functional. It stated that all the ticket booking counters for both reserved and unreserved travels at the railway stations and outside of the stations' premises will remain closed till May 3rd. The Railways have directed the zones to initiate full of fares refunds for the canceled trains and it has clarified that the passengers could claim a full refund for all trains canceled in this period till June 21st.

The suspension of the services would affect around 12,000 trains that have been operated by the Indian Railways daily. On the other hand, the Aviation services, which is one of the important transportation channels, would also remain suspended till the midnight of May 3. The Civil Aviation Ministry has, on Tuesday, said that all the international and domestic commercial passenger services would remain closed till the newest deadline.

Earlier, the ministry has suspended the movements of airlines in the country from March 25th to April 14th which was the first spell of the nationwide lockdown and the cancellations have shown that the restrictions on the movement of vehicles wouldn't be relaxed during the tenure of the embargo. Most of the state governments have suspended bus transports in their respective territories and limited the services to contain the spread of the pandemic. 

On Tuesday, as speculated earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended the nationwide lockdown, which is the biggest in the world, till May 3rd. He stated the country will remain under strict restrictions till April 20th after which the decision of relaxing the lockdown would be taken based on the situation and he said that the Central government would be releasing the extensive guidelines on implementing the second spell of the lockdown on Wednesday.

Also read: The nationwide lockdown has been extended till May 3rd - Here's what Modi said!