Amid the rise in coronavirus cases nationwide, the Maharashtra government on Thursday decided to cancel the AC local services from March 20 till further orders. It will be replaced by non-AC services. Thus, the total number of services will remain the same.
The Maharashtra government on Wednesday decided to reduce public transport commuter count by at least 50 per cent as part of measures to avoid crowding and enforce social distancing. After chairing a review meeting in Mumbai, CM Thackeray said that suburban trains, state-run buses and private ones will run only with 50 per cent of their seating capacity.
Maharashtra currently has 49 coronavirus positive cases, the highest for any state.
The number of commuters on the suburban trains of the Western Railway (WR) has reduced by over 8 lakh, the day when 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 March 17, 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," Ravinder Bhakar, chief spokesperson of WR told news agency PTI.
