Members of the public will be allowed to travel on suburban trains from Friday. Prior to this, only staff in essential services were allowed to travel in workmen special trains.
In a press release, Southern Railway said it would be permitting women passengers to travel round the clock, while male commuters not working in government, private or other offices would be allowed to travel only during non-peak hours. Children below 12 years of age would be allowed to travel only when accompanied by women passengers. Peak hours have been designated from 7 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Southern Railway has allowed all persons working in offices of Central and State governments, private offices, and other sectors, to travel on suburban trains. Tickets would be issued to this category of commuters only on production of permission letters and identification cards. Commuters arriving or travelling on long-distance trains would also be issued with tickets on showing the trains tickets.
Southern Railway has advised commuters to follow all COVID-19 norms of wearing face masks, maintaining physical distancing and has also asked commuters to carry their valid documents to be shown to the ticket checkers. Any commuters not wearing face masks would be fined ₹500, the railway release has warned.
