After a halt on local trains in Mumbai for two-and-a-half months, the central and western railways resumed the train services. A limited number of suburban trains will be allowed on the track and Mumbai local trains resume services on june 15. Only essential services providers identified by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the state government can travel.
“Western Railway has decided to resume their selected suburban services with defined protocol & SOP, only for movement of essential staff as identified by the State Government,” tweeted the western railways.
The Central Railway will run 200 trains services on the ma between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus to Thane, Kasara, Kalyan, Karjat, and the Harbour line. Railway will run 73 sub-urban services, and trains will start from 5:20 am to 11:30 pm.
The Maharashtra government has identified around 1.25 lakh essential staff who can book their tickets showing government identification cards. QR based e-pass will be provided for those commuters to travel with easy ticket checking.
To maintain COVID-19 measures like social distancing railway will allow 700 passengers to travel in trains with 1,2000 passengers capacity. An ambulance will be kept ready out of the station along with medical staff to deal with emergencies.
Railway Protection Force(RPF) will deploy its force at all stations, and multiple rounds of checking will happen to ensure only essential service related people are travelling.
Neary 60,00 related to essential services travelled on Monday when the operations started due to lack of clarity many essential workers entries were denied and many who were allowed to commute in the morning stopped to enter stations in the evening.