Central Railway and Western Railway are issuing monthly passes to vaccinated passengers instead of daily tickets to decongest the crowd.
The Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued an order allowing common people, irrespective of the nature of their jobs, to board suburban trains in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
In this order, the state government has broadened the definition of fully vaccinated people to cover people working in non-essential sectors as well. This means people who have taken both the doses of vaccine against COVID-19 and completed 14 days after vaccination can travel in local trains.
The government also said that people working in essential sectors should be fully vaccinated and they should complete 14 days of vaccination before being allowed to board local trains.
Presently, Central Railway and Western Railway are issuing monthly passes to vaccinated passengers instead of daily tickets to decongest the crowd.
Notably, both the railways said on Monday that suburban services in Mumbai will be operated at 100% capacity of pre-pandemic level from October 28, but the existing travel restrictions for the general public will remain unchanged.
An official said on Monday that this decision has been taken in view of the increasing number of passengers.
Central Railway and Western Railway will run 1,774 and 1,367 services respectively on their suburban network from October 28. Zonal Railways used to operate many of these services before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Presently, Central Railway and Western Railway are operating 1,702 and 1,304 suburban services respectively, which is 95.70% of the total suburban services in normal period.
As of now, only government employees and employees of essential services are allowed to travel in suburban trains, apart from fully vaccinated citizens, who have completed 14 days after the second dose and who are below 18 years.
Following the outbreak of the pandemic, the suburban services were completely stopped with effect from March 22, 2020. Later the Railways introduced suburban services for essential service categories, as identified by the Government of Maharashtra and approved by the Ministry of Railways with effect from June 15, 2020.
The suburban locals are considered the lifeline of Mumbai. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 80 lakh commuters traveled by suburban locals. The graph of COVID-19 is slowing down in Maharashtra too.
The state on Monday reported 889 COVID-19 cases, the lowest number in a day since May 5, 2020, and 12 fresh deaths, the highest single-day death toll, a health department official said. number is low.
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