The Indian Railways has decided to run 80 new special trains from September 12 amid an increase in demand during the coronavirus pandemic, PTI reported on Saturday.

“Eighty new special trains or 40 pair of trains will start operations from September 12,” Railway Board chairperson VK Yadav said. “Reservations will begin from September 10. This will run in addition to the 230 trains already in operation.”

“Wherever there is a demand for a particular train, wherever the waiting list is long, we will run a clone train ahead of the actual train, so that passengers can travel,” Yadav said, adding that the Railways would also run trains in areas where there is a special demand due to exams.

The new trains include the Vande Bharat Express between New Delhi and Varanasi, a Shatabdi Express between New Delhi and Lucknow and a weekly Shramik train between Valsad in Gujarat and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

“Our future endeavour will be to keep monitoring the occupancy patterns of the trains, so that whenever we witness a surge in demand for a particular train leading to waiting lists, we will run a clone train there to clear the rush,” Yadav said, according to The Indian Express. “We have selected these trains keeping the prevailing demand pattern in mind. Migrant labourers and others have been travelling on these routes.”

The cases in India crossed the 40-lakh mark on Saturday morning. With a record 86,432 new cases in 24 hours, India’s tally rose to 40,23,179. The toll is now 69,561, while 31,07,233 people have recovered. India is soon likely to overtake Brazil, which has recorded 40.91 lakh cases so far.