More on Covid-19

NEW DELHI: The railways on Thursday cancelled 84 trains, which will not operate between March 20 and March 31, taking the number of trains cancelled in view of low occupancy and coronavirus pandemic to 155, officials said.Railway officials said the trains were identified on Wednesday night and the decision would be effective from March 20 to March 31.These include IRCTC operated two Tejas Express trains and one Humsafar Express train."All passengers having tickets in these 155 trains are being informed about it individually. No cancellation fee will be taken for these trains. Passengers will get 100 per cent refund," an official said.Tourist specials like Maharaja, Buddhist, Bharat Darshan , and state specials have already been cancelled. The decision to cancel the Tejas service between Mumbai-Ahmedabad and New Delhi-Lucknow and the recently launched Humsafar service between Indore-Varanasi was taken on Wednesday night, officials said.The national transporters has also issued a set of guidelines to zonal headquarters for its catering staff, saying no employee having fever, cough, runny nose or difficulty in breathing "should be deployed in the business of food handling on the Indian Railways".The novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 169 on Thursday after 18 fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country, according to the Health Ministry.The cases include 25 foreign nationals -- 17 from Italy, 3 from the Philippines, two from the UK, one each belonging to Canada, Indonesia and Singapore.The figure also includes three deaths reported from Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra so far.