Amid the rising number of cases in Mumbai, the Western Railway and Central Railway resumed their Mumbai suburban services over mainline and Harbour line on Monday. However, the trains will not be for general passengers/public and will be strictly meant for ‘essential staff’ as identified by the state government. The Maharashtra government has identified around 1.25 lakh essential staff (including 50 thousand on Western Railway).
“Western Railway have decided to resume their selected suburban services over WR w.e.f. Monday, 15th June, 2020 with defined protocol & SOP, only for movement of essential staff as identified by the State Government,” the Western Railway tweeted. The Western Railway will run 73 pairs of suburban services including 8 pairs between Virar and Dahanu Road. The Western Railway and Central Railway have decided to run the trains from 5.30 am to 11.30 pm with interval of around 15 minutes.In view of the social distancing guidelines, only 700 people will be allowed to board a train with a seating capacity to accommodate about 1,200 persons.
Travelling authority will be applicable as per normal procedure over Western Railway and Central Railway for season tickets etc and certain booking windows will be opened for the same, on which respective staff will be facilitated on showing their government ID cards. Railways, as well as the state government, will ensure multiple rounds of checking to ensure only essential staff as identified by the state government, should board these trains. The WR and CR have ordered strict imposition of "no hawker and no parking zone" in station circulating area at 150 meters radius. Maharashtra on Sunday recorded 3,390 new coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 1,07,958.