More than 35,000 trains were cancelled in the first nine months of the of the 2021-22 fiscal year due to maintenance reasons, the railways said in a reply to an RTI query.The national transporter also said that during the April to June quarter of 2021-22, it had cancelled 20,941 trains due to "maintenance reasons", in the next quarter it had cancelled 7,117 trains,while in the October to December quarter, it had cancelled 6,869 trains.

The RTI query was filed by Madhya Pradesh-based Chandra Shekar Guar. Officials indicated that the highest number of such cancellations in recent history was in 2019, when around 3,146 trains were cancelled due to maintenance work.In 2014, 101 trains were cancelled due to maintenance work and the number increased to 829 in 2017, 2,867 in 2018 and 3,146 in 2019, according to official figures.