Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday met Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and demanded to resume trains for 'Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana' of the Delhi government.
"The Railway Minister assured me that the trains for Tirth Yatra Yojana will be re-allotted as early possible", the Deputy Chief Minister said, who was accompanied by Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh.
An official statement said, "earlier on Wednesday, the Deputy Chief Minister announced the Delhi government's decision to temporarily suspend the trips of Tirth Yatra Yojana upon the intimation from IRCTC informing the cancellation of trains for the scheme due to unavailability of rakes."
"IRCTC's decision affected more than 30000 elderly people whose pilgrimage trips were scheduled from 10 December onwards to destinations like Rameshwaram, Amritsar, Tirupati, and Vaishno Devi," the statement said.
"We hope that the honour of these 30,000 elderly people will be respected by resuming the Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana", Sisodia added.
Delhi government launched Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana on July 12, 2019, to enable the elderly people to make the pilgrimage to 12 holy places and had undertaken an MoU with IRCTC to facilitate travel to these destinations. Since its launch, the scheme helped 32,828 elderly pilgrims from Delhi to visit 10 pilgrim destinations in 34 trips.