Confusion over Aarogya Setu as Railways says app must for Rajdhani but gives no guidelines

Zonal Railway officials say they were not issued any directive in this regard. A ministry official says it was a last-minute decision.

Rajdhani express (representative image) | Commons

New Delhi: The Railway Ministry — which Monday “advised” passengers boarding the special Rajdhani Express trains to download the government’s Aarogya Setu app — has now made it “mandatory” to do so, leading to confusion.

According to the guidelines issued Monday, the Railways said: “All passengers are advised to download and use the Aarogya Setu application.”

But in a late night tweet Tuesday, the ministry said it is “mandatory for passengers to download the Aarogya Setu app in their mobile phones”.

“Indian Railways is going to start a few passenger trains services. It is mandatory for passengers to download the Aarogya Setu app on their mobile phones, before commencing their journey,” the tweet posted at 12.27 am said.

Senior railway officials, however, told ThePrint the instructions were not issued to zonal railways, and they got intimated about the decision only through the ministry’s tweet. 

“We weren’t given any revised guidelines,” said a senior zonal railway official. “So, there is some degree of confusion… Not sure if we’re supposed to go by the tweet or the guidelines that are issued to us (Monday),” said the official.

However, a railway ministry official told ThePrint the last-minute decision was taken because all the decisions are being taken in real-time, and the decision to run passenger trains was announced only Sunday.

“The government wants to push more and more people to download the app. If 72 people are travelling in one coach, there is no other technology available to ensure that the person sitting next to you is not a potential source of infection,” the official said.

“People don’t always take advisories seriously… This is our way of telling people that it is a stern advisory,” added the official.

The Aarogya Setu app, launched in early April, was designed by MyGovIndia with an objective to collect data on people’s location and cross-refer it with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s database of Covid-19 tests to warn a user if an infected person is in the vicinity.

‘Someone without a smartphone won’t be thrown out’

The ministry official quoted above also said if a person has a smartphone and he has not downloaded the app, then he will be “encouraged” to download it at the station itself.

“If a person does not have a smartphone, it is not like they’ll be thrown out… No such formal instructions have been issued to the Railway Protection Force also.” 

The official also said no such decision has been taken for the ‘Shramik Special’ trains as it is quite natural that migrant workers may not have a smartphone.

The ministry’s guidelines issued Monday were sent to all zonal railways regarding the operations of the 15 special Rajdhani Express trains that are scheduled to start running from Tuesday.

By Monday, over 82,300 passengers have secured tickets to these trains, according to the ministry’s data.