Mumbai: Pressure builds on railways to restart daily tickets for locals

Commuters buy tickets at Mulund station. Pic/Sameer Markande

With colleges and schools opening up across the state, pressure has started to build on the railways to start issuing daily tickets and allow tickets and passes through the app. Multiple petitions have been sent to the state to open up the windows for daily tickets.

As per the government's existing guidelines, only monthly season tickets are being issued to passengers. As per the SOPs issued by Mumbai University on Sunday, in-person lectures will start from October 20 but cafeteria, canteens and shops on campus will remain shut.

Now, only fully vaccinated citizens can use trains

Rajan Saharse, a college student, said, "We have appealed to the authorities to allow the railways issue daily tickets."

"It is high time the government allows travel by local trains as many of the sectors are opening up. Public transport is vital to reach schools and colleges. Not just for students, but for the staff as well. The ill-planned rule of monthly season tickets should be scrapped and tickets should be issued to all," said Shailesh Goyal of the Western Railway Zonal Users' Consultative Committee. "The main issue is crowding at booking counters. The railways should open up the app so that people can start booking tickets online. The season tickets and vaccine certificates are on government apps and they can be linked," said Subhash Gupta, Rail Yatri Parishad president.

Railway officials said that there was no provision to isolate the section of monthly season tickets in the app hence it had not been opened up. "These are unprecedented times and no one had guessed it while building the apps. Hence the app has been isolated as a whole," said an official.