MUMBAI: Railways is gearing up for running fullfleged services as they have decided to run 95 per cent of the trips in anticipation that general public may be permitted to travel in suburban network since March 22, 2020 when lockdown was imposed.
A total of 204 more locals will run, cumulatively on Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR), thus making it 2,985 services per day from January 29.
At present 2,781 services run on Mumbai suburban network, including 1,201 on WR and 1,580 on CR.
CR's chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar said, "We have decided to increase the suburban services from the existing 1,580 to 1,685 services."
Of this, 858 will be on mainline and 574 on Harbour line.
WR's chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur said, "We will run 1,300 services from Friday."
Earlier, WR had planned to run all its 1,367 services but the decision was reversed within few hours after the announcement was made.
Sources said, “The state government has indicated that it wants to allow all general category passengers to travel in trains soon. We also need to be prepared in advance by running close to 100 per cent services to ensure that there are no glitches when all passengers are allowed.”
Railway has clarified that only those passengers permitted by railway ministry and state government will be allowed to travel by the suburban trains. Others are requested not to rush to the railway stations.
On Monday, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had held a review meeting with railway and state government officials to discuss the steps needed to be taken to control crowd once general passengers are allowed to travel.
Thackeray said that the decision on permitting all passengers to travel in local trains will be taken soon.
At present, both CR and WR are allowed to carry not more than 700 passengers per train as per social distancing rules. This means, only 22 lakh people can travel in local trains even with the full complement of 3,141 services—1,367 on WR and 1,774 on all four CR lines.
A railway official said, "By running almost 95 per cent of the services, we are ensurimg crew preparedness, rolling stock readiness and time table management once services are open to all passengers."
Another official said, "We do not want to be caught off-guard even if instructions are given in less than 48 or even 24 hours."