Mumbai local trains: Grace period for early ticket booking?

A commuter buys rail ticket from a counter at Dadar station. File pic/Ashish Raje

As monthly season tickets are being issued four days ahead of reopening of the local trains for fully vaccinated public, officials say they are exploring the possibility of a grace period.

"The idea of early booking is that crowds will be distributed across several days till August 15. This would help avoid massive crowding on Day 1," a senior official said.

Issuance of a monthly pass on August 11 would mean commuters losing four days of travel, as they are allowed to board the locals only from August 15. Commuters who book their monthly ticket early would risk losing a minimum of one day and a maximum of four days of travel.

Railway officials said they cannot change the centralised software, but are exploring ways to give a grace period to the pass holders who book early.

As the rail traffic is about to increase, Central Railway will increase the ticket counters across its 75 stations to 341 from the existing 300, and Western Railway will up its counters across 38 stations to 276 from 149.

No other form of ticketing, such as ATVM machines, JTBS or online, will be opened. Commuters wishing to travel via local trains will need to physically buy the tickets from the station after proper verification of their vaccination status.

Also read: Mumbai local trains: Offline verification for issuing travel passes to start from August 12

Why not use Aarogya Setu?

When asked why Aarogya Setu app was not being used for issuance of tickets to fully vaccinated citizens, railway officials said there is a possibility of cheating. People could use someone else's vaccination status, and there is no photo on the app, whereas tickets or passes are issued using photo ID proof.