30 January,2021 07:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B. Aklekar
Commuters alight from and board a train at Kandivli railway station on Friday. Pic/Satej Shinde
Now that the authorities have approved public travel on trains starting February 1, the all-important question is how exactly will things work on the ground? While local trains are being run in Kolkata and Chennai, which have a lower volume of travellers, and even though they have devised ways, like a colour-coded ticket app, there have been crowds. Mumbai railways have neither developed an app nor installed the promised flap gates at key stations.
A local train parked at a car shed in Kandivli on Friday. Pic/Satej Shinde
Officials said that various options, like colour-coded tickets and flap gates at major termini, had been experimented with but given the volume of crowds in Mumbai, the measures proved inadequate. "The key in Mumbai will be crowd control and the railways may take the assistance of city police and other authorities to regulate crowds," a railway official said.
Women commuters at Mumbai Central station. File pic
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"The priority will be to restore normalcy. To start with, we will be throwing open all the possible entry/exit gates, foot overbridges, lifts and escalators so that there are no hindrances at stations. Wherever possible, we will try to segregate incoming and outgoing passengers. "In addition to this, ticketing will also be restored through automatic ticket vending machines, the ticketing app and booking counters will be restored to full capacity," the official explained, adding that a decision will be taken later to upgrade the services to 100 per cent. They will presently stay at 95 per cent.
"There will be an increased focus on drives for wearing masks and against spitting and special teams will be formed to undertake them. Both Central Railway and Western Railway have formed a dedicated workforce to maintain, sanitise and clean local trains overnight at respective car sheds after the day's trips are over. Vending machines for masks and sanitisers will also be made available," he added.
