Soon, no daily tickets on Mumbai trains

Will daily suburban train tickets be discontinued temporarily? The Mumbai suburban trains on Western and Central Railway lines are witnessing 42-45 lakh people travelling daily, out of which only 25 lakh have monthly season tickets. Railway officials said that most of the remaining daily passengers are those working on essential duties, buying daily tickets.
Currently, only fully vaccinated individuals (with a waiting period of at least 14 days after the second dose) are given monthly season tickets (MSTs) by the WR and CR.
On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government announced that all citizens, including essential workers and government employees, will have to be fully vaccinated to board and travel in Mumbai local trains. This would mean that even those on essential duties, who aren't fully vaccinated, might not be issued daily tickets and will have to buy season passes.
"We might not issue daily tickets to anyone. Yet we are still having internal discussions on the same before we finalize the same," said a railway official on condition of anonymity.
The Maharashtra government's new order clarifies that only fully vaccinated will be allowed even for those on essential duties; daily tickets won't be issued to them from now onwards. Currently, essential and government workers are permitted to travel irrespective of their vaccination status.
The requirement has now been extended to even those working in essential and government sectors with the new orders.
Moreover, the railways can now issue quarterly and half-yearly Season Passes apart from monthly passes. As of October 25, the Central Railway gave 17.35 lakh MSTs, while the Western Railway has sold 8.15 lakh MSTs to the fully vaccinated since August 11. CR has already sold 7.07 lakh MSTs since October 1, while WR sold around 3.95 lakh MSTs.
As it is from October 28, the railways will operate at total capacity. The Central Railway will run 1,774 local train services and 1,367 Western Railway instead of the current 1,702 and 1,304 services on Churchgate-Dahanu, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus-Karjat/Kasara/Panvel and Trans harbour corridors.
Mumbai local train services resumed for fully vaccinated passengers in August, after a hiatus of four months. Passengers were restricted from commuting in local trains in the first week of April after the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.