Mumbai: After 19 months since the Covid-induced lockdown came into force, the railway authorities are planning to operate their suburban services at 100 percent. The augmentation in the number of services is likely to happen from next week.
The railways are maxing out their train services. At present, the Western Railway (WR) is operating 95 per cent of their services, which is around 1,300 services everyday. However, the officials from WR said that they are certainly looking at running their fleet for 100 per cent services from next week. This will take the total trains to 1,367 services.
"We are currently trying our best to introduce all our suburban services starting Monday, though it hasn't been finalized yet. Perhaps, we will be able to run train services at 100 percent by next week," said a senior WR official on condition of anonymity.
Likewise, the Central Railway (CR) has also made plans of augmenting its train services to 1,774 that was during pre-Covid times. The CR are currently operating 1,686 services now.
"We have prepared a detailed plan for augmenting train services to 100 percent. However, we have sent it to the headquarters for final approval and whenever we get a go-ahead we will be ready with it," said a senior CR official on condition of anonymity.
The WR had last increased services on August 16 after the Maharashtra government allowed fully vaccinated people to buy monthly season tickets (MSTs). The two railway authorities introduced 173 additional services from August 16.
Before this, the CR authorities were running 1,612 services, while the WR were operating 1,201 services. With the current augmentation, the railways will be able to cater the increasing crowd.
Ever since the Maharashtra government and Indian Railways amended guidelines for the train travel, the daily numbers have touched around 45-50 lakh on average. Earlier this week, the WR clocked 19-22 lakh daily average of passengers while CR saw 25-28 lakh passengers on an average.
