Decision on allowing people in suburban trains soon: Rajesh Tope

Amid severe resentment among the people, the Maharashtra government would soon take a call on allowing fully-vaccinated people to travel in suburban trains of the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR).

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, only people engaged in emergency services, healthcare givers, frontline workers and some others are allowed to travel in local trains.

The Disaster Management department of the Maharashtra government is in favour of allowing people, who have taken two doses of Covid-19 vaccine, to travel in local trains.

However, the final decision would be taken by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

“To keep the wheels of the economy moving in Mumbai, the state disaster management has expressed its opinion in favour of allowing people who have taken both doses of vaccine to board local trains. Some experts have also suggested increasing the timings of shops and other services beyond 4 pm,” state Public Health and Family Welfare Minister Rajesh Tope said.

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However, he said that is a bit difficult to verify whether people travelling in local trains have actually received both the doses or not - however, the state government can work out with railway authorities.

It may be mentioned that several top politicians, NGOs, business and traders associations and commuters’ groups are requesting the government to allow people to travel in local trains.

In Mumbai-MMR, the suburban trains of the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) were opened for the general public from 1 February – though with restricted timings – resulting in overcrowding.

Currently, around 20 lakh people are using the trains on a daily basis – as against the pre-pandemic figures of 70 to 80 lakh.

The CR-WR suburban train services are considered the lifeline of Mumbai, the financial capital of India – and the network collectively runs over 3,200 services daily under normal circumstances.

Commuter organisations had been requesting the Maharashtra government, Railway ministry and CR-WR managements on the issue.

“We started a social media campaign so that more people could support the need to resume train services for more categories of commuters. Travelling by road is not always feasible and it doesn’t cater to many people,” said Madhu Kotian, president, Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.

Commuter bodies have suggested hourly slots for rail travel, efficient use of QR Code-based Universal Travel Card and permission for those with two doses of vaccination.