- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
MUMBAI, the financial capital of India, saw its lifeline – the suburban rail services – resuming almost fully in more than a year as part of easing of Covid-19 restrictions as the rate of infections fell.
Earlier, only essential workers were allowed to use the train services but from Sunday (15), anybody who has been completely vaccinated were allowed to board the trains.
The civic authorities of Mumbai, also called ‘The Maximum City’, also said that parks, seafronts and playgrounds were allowed to stay open for all until 10 pm local time (1630 GMT). Previously, they were shut at 4 pm.
On Monday (17), the second day after the train services were 95 per cent open, not too many people were seen travelling since it was a public holiday.
More than eight million people travel on Mumbai’s local trains daily in normal times but the services remained shut for the commuters since March 2020, when the first Covid-related lockdown was announced in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.
In February this year, commuters were allowed to travel on trains at non-peak hours but that was stopped after a devastating second wave hit the country, killing several thousands.
Maharashtra remained one of the most affected states during the second wave and Mumbai alone saw a peak of 11,000 cases a day in May-June. However, new cases have plummeted after the state saw strict lockdown curbs. On Monday, Mumbai recorded 195 fresh infections, marking a significant fall from the high numbers seen at the beginning of the second wave.
India has so far reported 32 million cases of infection, making it the second most-affected nation after the US (almost 37 million). India’s death toll has been 432,000, the third highest after the US (622,000) and Brazil (569,492).
