A month of Mumbai local trains for vaccinated citizens in numbers

Mumbai local train services for public start from August 15 for people who have taken both the doses of Covid-19 vaccine, Local train operations were shut down in April this year during the ravaging second wave of Covid-19. Pic/Ashish Raje

As public access to local trains completes a month on Wednesday, it has been a rollercoaster ride for commuters. Though they are happy to travel on the lifeline, fully vaccinated citizens are upset at not being allowed to buy single-journey tickets. This has also led to the ballooning of ticketless travellers. Since Independence Day, 7,43,443 people have bought or renewed season tickets.

The state government allowed fully vaccinated Mumbaikars to use local trains from August 15 and also introduced a system to authenticate their vaccination certificates. While the Central Railway has sold or renewed 5,48,046 season passes, 1,95,397 such tickets were issued by the Western Railway. Dombivli on CR and Borivli on WR have sold the most number of season passes. Officials said the daily average footfall on Mumbai's suburban network before August 15 was in the range of 25-30 lakh.

Commuter organisations said it was high time the government allowed people to travel freely and responsibly. "The government should now allow commuters who have got a single dose because there are lots of complications like the gap between the two vaccine doses, availability and one cannot deny people their daily commute. Also, private offices should take up staggered timings to adjust to all this now," Subhash Gupta of Mumbai Yatri Sangh said.

The desperation to travel on local trains is reflected in the number of ticketless commuters. CR officials have fined a whopping 1,00,000 travellers in the past month and collected Rs 3 crore from them. On WR, 15,786 such passengers were fined and Rs 43.92 lakh was recovered from them.

Two empty trains during non-peak hours at Bandra stn. Pic/Atul Kamble

"Even after having two doses, tickets for the single journey are not allowed to commuters. Many small businessmen and commuters need to travel to multiple locations every day. It's not possible to take four different passes of CR, WR, Harbour and Trans-harbour," said Siddhesh Desai, vice-president of the Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh. He has filed a complaint with the rail ministry on this practice.

"As the oldest and biggest commuter organisation representing Mumbai commuters, we have demanded a single monthly pass for all routes or single-journey tickets to eligible commuters," Desai said.

A WR official checks the tickets of commuters at Malad station on May 9. Pic/Satej Shinde

Railway officials said they are only following the state and local guidelines, which are revised from time to time.

Shailesh Goyal of Western Railway Zonal Users' Consultative Committee, who had first floated the idea of allowing doubly vaccinated commuters to mid-day and later the state government, said, "Many passengers have been travelling ticketless leading to crowds in peak hours and it is time to open the services to all."

Commuters have also demanded the resumption of EMU trains on the Vasai-Diva-Panvel route for the fully vaccinated.

Action against the maskless

Apart from ticketless travellers, railway officials have also taken action against commuters without masks. Between April 17 and August 31, CR authorities have collected a fine of R30 lakh from 17,524 maskless commuters. Since February, WR caught 698 maskless commuters and recovered a fine of Rs 84,800 from them.

Rs 3cr
Fine collected by CR from ticketless travellers in past month