Fully vaccinated citizens get on board

Local trains will operate at routine operational hours; Railways prepared to handle extra crowd

MUMBAI: Local trains in Mumbai resumes operations for the fully vaccinated citizens today (Sunday) after a gap of four months. On April 15 this year, local train services were closed for the general public for the second time amid the pandemic, owing to an increase in Covid-19 cases in the city.

Apart from fully vaccinated passengers who have pre-verified their vaccination status and obtained a monthly travel pass, healthcare workers and essential employees are allowed to use the trains as usual.

Trains will operate at routine operational hours of the Central and Western Railways.

Railway authorities said they are prepared to handle the extra crowd on trains starting Sunday. A spokesperson from Central Railway on Saturday said, “We have increased the number of ticket counters across stations. Before August 11, we had 300 counters, now we have 340 to avoid crowding at ticket windows. Railway police have also been deployed, and ticket checkers will conduct random checks at all stations. For Independence Day, Central Railway has taken additional security measures, deployed a dog squad and two ninja drone cameras for Mumbai division.”

A spokesperson from Western Railway said, “On a weekend, we see around 120,000 passengers, and on a weekday it is around 150,000. This is likely to increase by a few thousand passengers as we have issued an average of 10,000-12,000 passes a day since August 11.”

On Thursday, the state government had also made the verification process online, via link: http://epassmsdma.mahait.org

So far, a total of 91,925 passes have been issued by Central and Western Railways to fully vaccinated beneficiaries who have also completed 14 days after their second dose. On Friday, a total of 25,038 passes were issued.