The Eastern Railway authorities have decided to extend the validity of season tickets to match the days passengers lost in the lockdown.
Passengers whose validity of season tickets expired during the lockdown because local train services had been suspended amid the Covid situation can revalidate their tickets from the unreserved ticketing systems (UTS) counters from 8am on Monday.
Notification in this regard will be issued soon to appraise the passengers so that they can take the local train service without hassle when it resumes service from Wednesday.
A senior official in the office of the chief commercial manager’s office (passenger marketing division), Eastern Railway, said: “For validation of the expired season tickets passengers will have to visit the UTS counters at the station from which they had booked the ticket.”
“Validation will begin from November 9 to ease the pressure at UTS counters that will begin selling daily tickets from November 11,” the official added.
The local train service had been suspended in March amid the Centre’s nationwide lockdown owing to the Covid situation. Last week, railway authorities announced its resumption from November 11 after the state government gave its nod.
Last week the ER authorities said that on Monday it would announce a detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) to resume the service in all the three divisions (Sealdah, Howrah and Kharagpur) with only about 10-15 per cent trains maintaining precautionary measures.
As part of its preparedness, ER authorities began cleaning and sanitisation of train coaches that had remained unused for the past seven months at the car sheds and various terminal stations.
An ER official said, “Such cleaning of coaches is a routine job. However, because of the Covid situation it has assumed special significance.”