Mumbai local trains: 1.16 lakh season passes sold in four days

BMC officials verify vax certificates at Churchgate. Pic/Bipin Kokate

In the past four days since the local municipal bodies opened booths for verification of fully vaccinated citizens willing to travel by train and the subsequent development of an app, the railways has issued 1.16 lakh monthly season tickets, with Dombvli station on Central Railway and Borivli on Western Railway issuing the highest number of tickets.

As per statistics available with mid-day, between August 11 and August 14, a total of 78,997 monthly season tickets were issued on the Central Railway and 37,088 were sold by the Western Railway.

"Dombivli on CR and Borivli on WR consistently remained in the top stations on all four days where the highest number of monthly season passes were issued. While it was 7,010 at Dombivli, the figure was 3,779 at Borivli," a senior railway official said.

Also read: Mumbai: In 1.5 years, suburban railway has not adapted to Covid-19 changes

TMC staff at a booth at Thane station. Pic/Sameer Markande

A day after the booths were opened, the Maharashtra government also released an app linked to CoWIN for the fully vaccinated where the Universal Travel Pass could be issued. Sources said so far about 1.48 lakh universal travel passes have been issued. Once the universal pass is issued, it needs to be taken to a railway ticket window, where a monthly season pass would be issued.

The government has issued strict guidelines only to issue a monthly season ticket and not any other form of ticket since it wants to assess the situation after a month. Commuters, however, have suggested that it should have considered issuing daily tickets too for convenience.