Amid rise in coronavirus cases in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to stagger office timings.
According to a report by Mid-Day, the BMC agreed to stagger office timings after government employees travelling on suburban trains expressed displeasure and raised concerns over lack of social distancing inside the trains. Trains coming from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) beyond Kalyan and Virar are witnessing crowds due to limited services and halts.
More than 20 lakh Mumbaikars, working as essential staff, have travelled on the suburban services in the last 21 days. This news will definitely come as a relief to these travellers.
The Railways started operating nearly 300 additional suburban trains in Mumbai from July 1 to facilitate the essential services staff, although some of the commuters claimed that maintaining social distancing was a challenge as most locals were "overcrowded", especially during the peak hours.
As many as 150 new local train services were added on the Central Railway (CR) routes and 148 on the Western Railway (WR) on Wednesday, which took the overall number of services on Mumbai's suburban network to 700. The commuters claimed that most of these trains were packed to their capacity during the peak hours. The CR and the WR had resumed from June 15 their suburban services, which were suspended from March 23.
