Curbs on Mumbai local train travel working, let them stay: Commuters

Commuters show their ID cards to police officers before entering Ghatkopar station. File pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

The city's daily Covid-19 cases have been coming down. Does that mean that the ban on public access to local trains been effective and instrumental? Most Mumbai commuter organisations say yes, there has been a difference and curbs on local train travel should remain in place for some more time.

Dr. Vasant Jain, who works at Bhayandar said, "I travel every day from Borivli to Bhayandar. The local train ban has been effective. There are fewer crowds and proper social distancing. Aggressive awareness campaigns about masks, social distancing and vaccination should be undertaken to make people realise how important these protocols are."

"We have been saying so for a long time and submitted a petition to the government. The suburban railways should upgrade their infrastructure on the lines of Metro rail. Crowd management is not just important for Covid-19 but also to curb accidents during normal times," Siddhesh Desai, vice-president, Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh, said.

National Railway Users' Consultative Committee member Subhash H Gupta from Yatri Sangh Mumbai, said, "The curbs have definitely made an important contribution. It is a result of checks at stations and on trains. Railways should continue checks and testing of outstation passengers even after curbs are lifted. I would suggest that the railways keep their food stalls closed for some time."

‘Wait for a further drop'

Shailesh Goyal of Western Railway Zonal Users' Consultative Committee said that the government should not hurry to open local trains. "We need to wait patiently for more cases to drop. Once the trains open for general public, it becomes difficult to implement strict checks," he said.

"It is difficult to make an analysis at this stage, but I feel that the curbs on local trains have definitely played some role in bringing down the numbers. The kind of super spreading that happens through the Mumbai local train crowd has definitely taken a pause," said Himanshu Vartak, consultative committee member for Palghar station.

Action against maskless

A senior CR official said after the state government's ‘Break the Chain' notification, the average number of passengers travelling daily on CR suburban network has come down from 20-25 lakh to about five lakh. "We have also been fining all commuters without mask distributing masks too. On Mumbai division alone, 446 passengers have been caught without a mask and levied Rs 77,000 in fines between April 17 and 30. In the entire month of April, 42,858 cases of irregular travel and ticketless commuters were detected on suburban trains, realising an amount of Rs 1.20 crore as penalties," a CR spokesperson said.

On WR too, about 2,626 cases have been made against maskless commuters, realising a fine of Rs 5,51,700 in April.

25 lakh
No. of daily passengers on CR before restrictions

5 lakh
No. of daily passengers on CR currently