Commuter bodies welcome move, daily footfall
expected to pick up in coming days
MUMBAI: With the state government doing away with all Covid restrictions, the railways on Sunday said it has deleted the vaccination-linked option from its ticketing app with immediate effect. Until recently, only fully vaccinated citizens were allowed to travel on local trains. Commuter bodies have welcomed the decision saying the condition caused inconvenience to scores of people.
“Yes. As per the directives from the state government on the lifting of restrictions, the railways has lifted all curbs and opened ticketing for all at counters and on the app for both railways in Mumbai. This means that commuters won’t now need to link their vaccine certificates to the ticketing app. All such instructions have now been withdrawn,” a railway spokesperson said.
The official said that all the authorised entry-exit gates, lifts, escalators, foot overbridges closed during the pandemic, all commercial ticket counters and ATVM machines for booking will now be opened. This is in addition to the removal of restrictions on the UTS mobile app for fresh ticketing.
Mumbai local train tickets and passes were available only for doubly vaccinated and had to be linked to the vaccination certificates and universal pass generated by a state government portal. Opposing this, a group of citizens had also approached the high court, which last month blasted the state and asked it to clarify its stand. The government recently decided to do away with all the restrictions from April 1 citing a drop in Covid cases in Maharashtra.
As per the latest statistics, daily passenger numbers on Mumbai suburban trains have touched nearly 65 lakh—about 35 lakh on the Central Railway and over 29 lakh on the Western Railway. The figures are 15 lakh less than that of pre-pandemic levels.
Senior citizen passenger committee member 62-year-old Mansoor Um
