Locals welcome female commuters

Local services welcomed all the traveling women on Wednesday, the first time after the imposition of the blockade in March, when all women were allowed to take the trains.

Several stations saw an avalanche of passengers, but authorities quickly brought the situation under control.

In Dombivali there was a rush at 11 am, but it was controlled in 20 minutes. Also in the evening, more than a hundred women gathered at Andheri.

“Due to the sudden rain, more than 100 women gathered outside the station, but we opened five more reservation counters and checked the situation in an hour,” said a Western Railway official.

“From 11 am to 3 pm, more than 1,000 women purchased season tickets in the western suburban sections,” said Sumit Thakur, public relations director for Wester Railway. When asked about the number of women commuting to work, she said that between 11 a.m.

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Similarly, Shivaji Sutar, CR CPRO, said that more than 25,000 women traveled on the Central Railway suburban section between 11 am and 10 pm on Wednesday.

Laxmi Krishnan, a Dombivli resident who works in Andheri, who was forced to spend almost 5 hours a day traveling, said: “It is like a dream come true.”

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CR currently has 706 locations, including four ‘women’s specials’ (Photo by Deepak Turbhekar)

Rail passes will remain valid

Travelers who had a valid rail pass when the closure was announced in March will be able to travel with the same pass once services are fully resumed, according to authorities.

Authorities have already made “appropriate changes to the system so that when passengers return, their passes are extended,” a Central Railway official said.

From now on, apart from essential workers approved by the state government, only women can ride local services operated by the Central and Western Railroad, and will be the beneficiaries of the latest announcement.

The plan will soon be extended to male passengers too, said a senior rail official.

According to sources, around 80 percent of all local travelers use passes on normal days. In Mumbai, around 80 lakh people use local services on a daily basis.

“I renewed my quarterly pass a week before the closure was announced,” said Smita Deshmukh, 36, of Kalyan. “This announcement will benefit people like us.”

“In Mumbai, hundreds of pass holders have quarterly and semi-annual passes. Most passengers have a validity of more than a month left, ”said Hemlata Shah, a resident of Ghatkopar.

Women commuters take local Mumbai trains

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