Mumbai local trains: No immediate plans to open it to all

Mumbai, Dec 11: Officials have clarified that there are no immediate plans to open Mumbai local trains to all. Iqbal Singh Chahal, Mumbai's Municipal Commissioner said that a recommendation about permitting general public to travel by local trains will be made after monitoring the situation after Christmas and New Year celebrations are over.

Depending on the situation during Christmas and New Year's Eve, we can take a decision about restarting local trains. He warned that if people continued to defy the coronavirus restrictions, the government will be forced to impose a night curfew in the city, adding that he had written to the state government seeking a night curfew after seeing that some night clubs were operating overnight.

The government is not in favour of imposing a night curfew because it creates panic among people. Hence it has decided to wait and watch till December 25," Chahal told PTI.

After being shut since the outbreak of COVID-19, Mumbai trains were opened for essential services on June 15.

Instead of the usual 1,200 passengers, the trains were carrying only 700 essential service providers in order to maintain social distancing.