More than 40,000 commutes, who were not fully vaccinated, were fined worth 1 crore for ticketless travelling on the suburban network in a week, officials said. The commuters were fined from August 15 since they had taken a single dose or didn’t take any vaccine at all.
The rules of the Mumbai local train permit only those with double dose of Covid-19 vaccine to travel by local trains 14 days after their second jab, with a monthly season pass, Times of India reported.
After the rules were related a week ago, 3 lakh general commuters with double jabs were traveling in the local trains. The passenger rights groups have demanded that the railways also issue ticket to those who are fully vaccinated.
The report said passengers who were caught ticketless were mostly citizens going to their workplace and were desperate to travel. Among those fined were also commuters who were daily wage earners, who don’t want to buy monthly passes at all.
On Friday, 2692 passengers were found travelling ticketless on the suburban railway stations and a fine of Rs 8.5 lakh was recovered from them.
“There is a gap of 84 days between two vaccines and we have to wait for 15 more days before we are authorised to travel by train. It is too long a wait. Since trains are the best mode of transport, there will be cases of ticketless travelling,” a commuter told Times of India on the condition of anonymity.
According to the BMC, around 3.04 lakh healthcare and frontline workers in Mumbai have taken both doses of the vaccine. This makes 72% of the essential workers’ category.
“We are conducting extensive inspections of tickets and are undertaking surprise and fortress checks. Under fortress checks, the entire railway station has ticket-checkers deployed at the platform and entry and exit of the stations. We undertook a fortress check at Thane and Wadala railway station on Friday. We request passengers to travel with a valid ticket to avoid inconvenience.” a senior Central Railway official told Hindustan Times.
Another official adds that on an average 40 passengers are caught everyday since the local train opened up for fully vaccinated.
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