The Indian Railways in an attempt to reduce overcrowding in suburban local trains has decided to run 610 additional services from November 1.
Of the 610 services, 314 will be run on the Central Railway network, while the remaining 296 will be plying on the Western Railways.
The Railways has been operating 1,410 services on Mumbai's suburban network, of which 706 are run on the Central line and 704 on Western Railway.
On June 15, the Railways resumed local train services for people employed in emergency and essential services.
Now after seven long months, the Maharashtra government has sought permission from the Indian Railways to allow all Mumbaikars to travel by local trains like before at different timings. Mumbai's lifeline, local was shut down when the central government announced the first lockdown in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the government has not announced the desired date and has left it to the railways to work out the modalities. But if reports are to be believed it is likely to be from the first week of November.
For this, Mumbai state Disaster Management, Relief and Rehabilitation secretary Kishor Raje Nimbalkar has written a letter to the general managers of the Central Railways and Western Railways along with the Commissioner of Police, Railways.
In his letter, Nimbalkar proposed separate time slots for essential service providers and the general public. Nimbalkar also proposed to run one ladies' special train every hour, as reported in TOI.
According to the proposed plan, Maharashtra general public should be allowed to board trains during three non-peak time slots.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led government has proposed different time slots to encourage private offices to stagger work timings, a senior official told TOI.
Currently, around seven lakh are using Mumbai’s local train network, especially during peak hours and if more are allowed during the same time, it will not be possible to maintain COVID-19 protocols, the official was quoted as saying.
