NEW DELHI: The railways revenue from sale of tickets has fallen by nearly Rs 450 crore between March 1 and March 18 as compared to last year due to less booking and high rate of cancellation of tickets due to the coronavirus outbreak. Different zones have temporarily cancelled over 200 trains and railways also announced suspending concessional booking of all tickets including that of senior citizens to discourage non-essential travel.Railway ministry officials said the concessions have been suspended to avoid overcrowding of trains. The railways have appealed to people to avoid non-essential travel. “Out of the 53 category of concessions now only 15 categories can avail it. This is for a temporary period due to Covid-19,” said a railway ministry official.An official statement said in order to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus and to minimise the travel related risks to elderly citizens, Indian Railways has withdrawn concessional booking of tickets to senior citizens for unreserved and reserved segment form Friday morning till further notice. “For railway tickets already purchased before 00:00 hrs March 20, 2020, in case of travel, no difference in fare shall be collected,” it said.Meanwhile, in Mumbai, both the Central Railway and Western Railway announced suspension of the services of air-conditioned local trains from Friday in view of the coronavirus outbreak. Ordinary train services would replace them.The IRCTC also cancelled all the three “private trains” it runs amidst the virus scare. Lucknow – Delhi Tejas Express, Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas Express and the newly launched Kashi Mahakal Express have been cancelled till March 31. The Kashi Mahakal Express was flagged off last month by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.These trains were introduced as a first step towards allowing private operators to run trains on the Indian Railways network. As per the proposal, nearly 150 trains by private operators would be allowed on 100 identified routes.Sources said they are staring at increasing revenue fall from passenger segment in the next couple of weeks as cancellation of tickets is on the rise and there are few fresh bookings.Parl panel chief issues clarification over reports railways was pulled up about Covid-19 repliesA day after media reports claimed that members of a parliamentary panel pulled up the railways and its chairman for not giving satisfactory replies on measures taken to contain the spread of Covid-19, its chairman issued a press release saying the committee appreciated the preparedness of the railways and other ministries.“The railway committee felt that though the representative of ministry of railways were called at a short notice, they came prepared with information about various measures taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus at railway stations and trains. The committee appreciated the preparedness of Ministry of Railways, Civil Aviation Tourism and External Affairs in tackling the coronavirus threat,” said a statement issued by chairman of the parliamentary panel on transport, tourism and civil aviation, T G Venkatesh.Venkatesh is a BJP MP.Railway Board chairman V K Yadav had told the panel that nearly 63% tickets had been cancelled in March because of coronavirus outbreak. Reports had claimed that the panel members were angry about the arrangements made by the railways to tackle the virus.