From May 1, train tickets in Mumbai will have journey information in Marathi

The move will be brought into effect on May 1 to commemorate Maharashtra Day.

Starting May 1, the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) will issue train tickets, including the ones of the suburban networks, that will contain information in Marathi, in addition to English and Hindi. The move will be brought into effect on May 1 to commemorate Maharashtra Day.

The testing of the trilingual tickets was conducted at the Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) headquarters. (HT file photo)

The testing of the trilingual tickets was conducted at the Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) headquarters in Mumbai and the ticketing machines have now been installed with Marathi Devnagari script.

“Marathi, being the state language, occupies a special place. Incorporating it in UTS tickets will give it a wider audience, as it is the local language,” said Sunil Udasi, chief public relations officer, CR. Western railway will also introduce tickets with information written in Gujarati.

“We have been testing the tickets with Marathi in Automatic Ticket Vending Machines and other ticketing systems for quite some time now. The tickets will also be introduced in other languages throughout the country,” said Uday Bobhate, general manager, CRIS.

The decision comes after various states in India started printing the tickets in their local languages. The first state to do this was Karnataka, where rail authorities introduced tickets that carried information in their local language Kannada, in addition to English.