Maharashtra to issue universal pass to enable entry at public places

The portal will be linked with the Centre’s Co-Win portal for the verification of the information related to the vaccine doses

After an announcement by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to start the local train travel for all fully vaccinated people in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) from August 15, the state government has started preparations for the portal which will enable the commuters to register themselves. The portal will be linked with the Centre’s Co-Win portal for the verification of the information related to the vaccine doses, making the system foolproof and enable the government to use it for access to the holder at other public places such as government offices, malls, theatres and markets.

Fully vaccinated citizens can travel by local train from August 15. (HT PHOTO)

The portal which is expected to begin its dry run in a day or two will be linked with the Co-Win portal for verification. Once both the portals are integrated, the holders will be issued QR code embedded universal pass through which they can obtain their tickets or season tickets. “We have evolved the system to verify the credentials of the holder as we did not want to rely only on the copy of the vaccination certificate, which can easily be faked. Once the registration is done on the Maharashtra government portal, the information will be verified using the application information interface linked with Co-Win and will be certified back to the state portal. The user will then get a link to take a selfie and upload back to the portal for the generation of the universal pass,” said an official from Mantralaya.

MMR, which comprises three districts, has 2,453,494 fully vaccinated people as of Monday, according to the state government data. Mumbai has 1,960,495 fully vaccinated people, while in Thane, Raigad and Palghar the number of fully vaccinated people is 982,498, 213,560 and 83,331 respectively.

The pass will be certified proof of the person being fully vaccinated. “The QR code on it could be verified by the authorities, including ticket collectors at Railway stations, using mobile cameras in smartphones. They will not have to have any separate mechanism for it. Once proved successful for the issuance of the railway tickets, the universal passes so issued can be utilised for the verification of the fully vaccinated people for relaxations to be given at other public places including malls, markets among others,” the official said.

The Central and Western Railway has started their discussions for the implementation of the universal pass with the Maharashtra government. Discussions between the railway authorities and state government officials happened on Monday as well. The railway authorities are tight-lipped on how the universal pass with QR code will be implemented but have stated that all concerns are being raised with the state government.

A detailed travel Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for passengers and information regarding universal passes is likely to be made public by Wednesday. “Inspection of the passes and checking on the entry and exit of the railway stations would have to be done. We are discussing all possible scenarios as to how the universal pass can be introduced for passengers. Discussions on how railway staff including ticket checkers, Railway Protection Force(RPF) personnel will be involved in crowd control is also being done.” said a senior railway official who did not want to be named.

Passenger associations have welcomed the move and have stated that SOP should be implemented immediately. “We welcome the decision to allow vaccinated passengers to travel by local trains. We had been demanding for a long time. The state government and railways should immediately issue SOP,” said Subhash Gupta, president, Rail Yatri Parishad.

The state government officials have held many meetings with the officials from Railways and have arrived at the consensus to evolve the system. “We have taken care to simplify it to make it feasible. For example, since it is not possible to check the credentials of the commuter at the ticket window due to crowding, we are issuing the universal pass which can be easily checked by the TCs at stations. This will encourage people for vaccination and the crowding in the train will increase gradually, only after the number of fully vaccinated people increase,” an official from the CM office said.