Maharashtra allows Railways to issue daily local train tickets to fully vaccinated people in Mumbai
In a major relief to commuters, the Maharashtra government revised its decision of barring Central and Western Railways from issuing single journey daily Mumbai local train tickets from today. However, being fully vaccinated to board local trains is a mandatory condition.
Revising its earlier decision, govt decided to allow daily tickets for people who are fully vaccinated and permitted them to travel in local trains along with passenger trains.
Late on October 30, the State Disaster Management Authority issued an order directing Western and Central Railways to issue all kinds of tickets, including daily ones.
"Due to numerous number of persons needing to travel through local trains and absence of permission to travel on daily tickets, tendency to travel without valid tickets has increased and this is also leading to non-compliance to the requirement of being fully vaccinated," the state government stated.
The state government earlier this week ordered that only fully vaccinated people, be it essential workers or the general public, will be allowed to travel via local trains and that no single-journey tickets will be issued. Also, Doubly vaccinated commuters were allowed to buy only monthly, quarterly, six-monthly, and annual passes. The suspension of daily tickets had led to widespread discontent among commuters.
“Thus, it has been decided to permit all citizens who have been fully vaccinated as per the definition of the state government to travel in local trains. As one time ticketing was allowed on long distance passenger trains before too, this relaxation means that all fully vaccinated citizens may travel in local and passenger trains on all routes, through all kinds of tickets issued including daily ticketing. Being fully vaccinated would be the only mandatory condition for issuance of any kinds of tickets for travel in trains,” the order read.
Around after a gap of 1.5 years, the Mumbai suburban local train services are now fully restored with 100% seating capacity. However, at present, owing to Covid-19 protocols, the state government is only issuing passes to those who have got two shots of a vaccine and have completed 14 days since their second dose.
Earlier last week, the Maharashtra government announced about resuming suburban trains in the Mumbai metropolitan area with 100% seating capacity. From August 11, the Railways had started issuing passes to passengers who are fully vaccinated.
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