Covid-19: No more platform tickets at these Maharashtra railway stations

The Central Railway official also rubbished rumours of overcrowding at railway stations and discouraged people from sharing such videos.

The Indian Railways has decided to stop selling platform tickets at Maharashtra's Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Kalyan, Thane, Dadar, Panvel and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from Friday. The move comes in the wake of rising cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Maharashtra, with the state reaching near the 60,000 mark in the past week.

Western and Central Railways authorities said women passengers do not need to show their identity cards or scan a QR code on their smart phones in their bid to travel by suburban trains. (Praful Gangurde)

"Sale of platform tickets have been stopped with immediate effect from today at the following stations —Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Kalyan, Thane, Dadar, Panvel, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Chief Public Relation Officer (CPRO), Central Railway, told news agency ANI.

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Rubbishing rumours of overcrowding at railway stations, the CPRO said, "Some old videos showing large crowds at various stations are making rounds on social media. Some reports also falsely mention that there is a mass movement of people. We appeal to everyone to avoid sharing such videos. People are requested not to believe in such rumours," the official said,

Last month, the Central Railway hiked the price of platform tickets at some key stations under the Nagpur and Bhusawal divisionsin order to discourage citizens from overcrowding the platform. "The platform tickets are priced at Rs50 at Nagpur station and Rs30 at Betul, Chandrapur, Balharshah and Wardha station in Nagpur division," an official said.

Prices of platform tickets at Nashik Road, Jalgaon, Bhusawal, Badnera, Madgaon, Shegaon, Akola, Amravati and Khandwa stations in Bhusawal division had already been raised from ₹10 to ₹50 before last month's hike. This is a commonplace practice for many years and is used as a short-term measure for crowd control.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra has imposed new Covid-19 restrictions as part of which a weekend lockdown and night curfew during the weekdays from Monday to April 30 has been announced. Non-essential shops will also remain closed till April 30 in addition to a slew of other restrictions like the closure of private offices, theatres and salons.