The Maharashtra government on Tuesday once again wrote a letter to the Railways requesting more local train services for women.
Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar wrote to both, Central and Western Railways, for initiating more local train services for women. "The State Government had communicated that all the women commuters with a valid ticket may be allowed to board trains during the non-peak hours (11 AM to 3 PM and again 7 PM onwards till end of local services for that day) as per the discussion held between the representatives of all stakeholders including the State Government and the Railways," the letter reads.
Maharashtra Chief Secretary in the letter further said the implementation of the joint decision is yet to be initiated. "However, the implementation of the joint decision is yet to be initiated. Thus, the women commuters may kindly be allowed to avail of the local train services in line with the above mentioned conditions at the earliest," the letter reads.
This is the second letter by the Maharashtra government and the Railways is yet to take a decision on whether or to allow local train services for women. Currently, women falling under 'essential services' are allowed to travel by trains.
The Western Railway on Monday said it was ready and is awaiting central government’s response on the same. “Maharashtra govt requested us on Oct 16 to allow local trains services for women, from 11 am to 3 pm & from 7 pm till the end of services for the day. We wrote them back & asked them to assess the quantum of passengers & asked them to jointly decide the modalities,” Sumit Thakur, CPRO Western Railway said.
On Friday, Maharashtra government announced it has allowed all women to commute by local trains at certain hours, starting from October 17. However, later in the evening on the same day, the Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway (CR) refused to oblige without getting the green signal from the Railway Board and working out the necessary modalities to permit women commuters.
