Mumbai: In Mumbai suburban area, 204 special local trains will be run from Friday. Railway officials gave this information. A joint statement issued by Central Railway and Western Railway on Tuesday said that with the running of additional trains, the total number of services running on the suburban network will increase to 2,985. Currently, these services are available only to a select class of travelers.
Railway officials said that with the commencement of 204 additional services, about 95 percent of the total local train services will be restored which were jointly operated by the Central Railway and Western Railway before the Covid-19 epidemic. Before increasing the number of local train services on Monday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the decision will be made soon to allow all passengers to travel on the suburban train.
Presently in view of the Covid-19 epidemic, only certain classes of passengers are allowed to travel in the Mumbai region by local train which includes women and people connected with essential services. Central Railway and Western Railway said in a joint statement, ‘Central Railway has now increased the number of 1,580 suburban services to 1,685 and Western Railway has increased 1,201 services to 1,300. It will be effective from Friday.
Before issuing a joint statement, Western Railway said that it would restore 100 percent suburban services on its network, but this decision was later withdrawn. At present, not all passengers are allowed on the local train. Only essential health services, disabled and cancer patients are allowed to travel. Apart from these, women passengers and lawyers can also travel by local train at the scheduled time.
