Nalasopara MLA writes to railway minister, asking him to restart local trains for all office-goers
Western Railway (WR) has decided to run an additional 150 local train services for essential workers from Monday. Of these, 59 services will be operated during rush hours. WR currently runs 350 local services a day for essential workers. Sumit Thakur, chief public relations officer, WR, said, “We will run 150 more local services a day from September 21 so that passengers can maintain social distancing.”
Central Railway (CR) for its part has been running 355 local train services over the past few months. Asked if they had any plans to increase the number of services, a CR official said, “We are observing the situation.” A source told Mirror that during a recent meeting between officials from CR’s Mumbai division and the state government’s disaster management cell, CR officials said they were ready to add more local services if the government asked. After being completely shut in the initial days of the lockdown, local trains resumed operations for essential workers – as defined by the government – in mid-June. WR initially operated 162 services a day, while CR ran 200. On June 29, WR added 40 more services. A bigger increase came two days later, on July 1, when CR added 150 more services and WR added 148, taking their respective totals to 355 and 350.
Meanwhile, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) MLA Kshitij Thakur has requested Piyush Goyal, the railway minister, to restart local train services for all office-goers. In a letter to Goyal on Thursday, the Nalasopara MLA wrote, “When will an office-goer go home and sleep? [They] spend all [their] energy travelling and working. To ease the woes of the already-suffering [public], it is important that they be allowed to travel by train to their workplaces. It will at least provide mental relief.”
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Data from WR showed that 33.75 lakh passengers travelled in their local trains from June 15 to September 17, including 2.28 lakh on September 17 alone. WR earned Rs 344.35 lakh during this period. In normal times, WR runs 1,367 local services a day and CR 1,774, catering to around 80 lakh passengers daily.
Many essential workers who travel by local train told Mirror that maintaining social distancing has been a challenge as – despite the restrictions on who can travel – most trains are overcrowded, especially during peak hours. One of these, a BEST employee who lives in Virar, said, “Conditions in the Churchgate fast were very bad on Friday morning. The train was crowded and no one could practise social distancing.”
The situation is the same in CR locals. An employee of the State Bank India, who did not wish to be named, said there was no social distancing in harbor line trains, especially during the morning peak hours. He added, “The railways had said that only a limited number of people would be allowed to board each train but there is no control on the number of passengers allowed to board. This results in overcrowding, which increases the chances of people spreading the coronavirus.” Some passengers said that while the situation was better during non-peak hours, CR should increase the number of services during rush hours.
