Allotment of Mumbai local train passes: 23,251 season tickets issued on Day 1

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), until 3pm on Wednesday, verified documents of 18,324 citizens at 358 helpdesks across 53 railway stations

On Day 1 of the offline verification process for train travel for the fully vaccinated from August 15, the railways issued 23,251 monthly season tickets till 6pm on Wednesday – 16,798 by the Central Railway (CR) and 6,453 by the Western Railway (WR). While Dombivli topped in the passes on the CR (1,217), on the WR, Borivli saw the maximum number of railway passes being issued (449).

BMC sets up help desk to verify and authenticate the Covid-19 certificates of passengers who have taken two doses of vaccines for issuance of local train passes at Bhandup station. (Pratik Chorge/HT PHOTO)

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), until 3pm on Wednesday, verified documents of 18,324 citizens at 358 helpdesks across 53 railway stations. The BMC was yet to compile the details of the number of documents verified and passes issued in the second shift (3pm to 7pm), at the time of going to press. Although there were queues of fully vaccinated citizens at railway stations across the city, no crowding was reported at any station, said officials. Among those availing the facility were citizens from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, as each city in the MMR gave permission for train travel.

On Tuesday, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray announced that fully vaccinated beneficiaries can travel by local trains from August 15 onwards, provided they have completed 14 days after the second dose of their vaccine shots and their documents have been verified by the BMC. Subsequently, the BMC announced on Tuesday evening that the offline verification process will start at 53 railway stations from Wednesday. The helpdesks set up by the civic body will stay open between 7am and 11pm daily, in two shifts. The Central and the Western Railway will operate 617 booking offices between 7am and 11pm everyday till August 15 to facilitate passengers.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner and incharge of the BMC’s health department, who is overseeing these operations, conducted rounds of some railway stations in the city on Wednesday morning.

Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the G-North ward, with jurisdiction over Dadar Terminus, said, “Operations have been going on smoothly at helpdesks at Dadar. There was no crowding at the station, as citizens have also realised there is time to get such passes issued. Helpdesks will stay open daily until further notice.”

The BMC is also in the process of making the verification procedure available online.

“We had expected the number of passengers to increase by 6pm, but that did not happen,” said a senior CR official. A senior civic official said, “As fully vaccinated citizens also have to wait for a period of 14 days after their second shot before applying for passes, the sample size of fully vaccinated beneficiaries also opting for a train pass may be small. Among those fully vaccinated, those who want to take the train as well may be a small number. We are yet to see how many passengers will opt for train travel.”

Suburban railway passengers welcomed the move. “I got my monthly railway pass smoothly in five minutes. My office got me vaccinated as soon as the vaccination process began. However, my friends will still have to suffer and pay more to commute as they have not got their second dose of vaccine,” said Aslam Shaikh, a Kurla resident.

According to the data from the BMC, a total of 1,914,771 beneficiaries have been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday evening. Of these, 297,377 are healthcare and frontline workers; 646,939 are citizens above 60 years of age; 811,709 are in the 45-60 age group; 140,944 are in the 18-45 age group; 721 are lactating mothers; eight are pregnant women; 16,889 are students or professionals looking to travel abroad, or those who were participating in Tokyo Olympics; 136 are physically or mentally differently abled; 26 are without identity proofs (prisoners/transgender persons); and 22 are bedridden beneficiaries.