Amid coronavirus outbreak, on Thursday Western Railway announced that AC local train services will be suspended in Mumbai from Friday.
Public Relations Officer (PRO), Western Railway, told news agency ANI, "AC local services on Western Railway in Maharashtra will be cancelled from tomorrow & will be replaced by non-AC suburban services, till 31st March."
The number of commuters on suburban trains of the Western Railway (WR) reduced by over 8 lakh on Tuesday, the day Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray appealed to people to avoid non-essential travel in view of the coronavirus outbreak in the state.
According to WR, on Tuesday 32.60 lakh passengers travelled on their suburban trains as against 40.75 lakh on Monday (down 8.15 lakhs). "The number of commuters reduced by around 25 per cent," said Ravinder Bhakar, chief spokesperson of WR told PTI. Suburban services are the lifeline of Mumbai and daily over 80 lakh commuters commute by them.
Earlier today, the number of positive cases in the State of Maharashtra rose to 49 making it the worst-hit state by COVID-19. So far, only one person was reported dead in the state. India reported 13 fresh cases of coronavirus, taking the tally to 169 in the country.
(Inputs from Agencies)
