Suburban trains, suspended since March 23 as a precaution against Covid-19, are set to roll out again from November 11 with roughly a fourth of the pre-pandemic strength, railway officials said after a meeting with the Bengal government’s representatives on Thursday.

There was no official announcement from the railways or the state government on the number of trains that will run. Nor was there any final decision on access control at porous suburban stations.

A formal announcement is likely on Monday, along with a detailed set of standard operating procedures for crowd control and train operations, sources in the state government and railways said.

“To start with, we plan to run 362 trains (181 pairs) — 114 pairs in the Sealdah division, 50 pairs in the Howrah division and 17 pairs in the Kharagpur division. We want to increase the number of trains gradually, in keeping the volume of passengers,” said a railway official.

Before the pandemic, around 1,500 trains ran every day in the three divisions, ferrying over 35 lakh passengers. The Howrah and Sealdah divisions — where 407 and 915 trains would run daily, respectively — are under Eastern Railway, while the Kharagpur division is under South Eastern Railway.

The Covid-19 protocols already in force on special long-distance trains — which make wearing of masks and thermal scanning for body temperature mandatory — will be applicable to passengers of suburban trains, too.

Railway officials said the state government would have to deploy police at the stations to check unauthorised entry. “It will not be possible to deploy Railway Protection Force personnel at every station. The state government is working on the modalities of crowd control. The modalities will come out in black and white as SOPs on Monday,” said a senior railway official.

Railway officials also pointed out that since the trains would run for all passengers, it would be impossible to stop people with a valid ticket from entering stations.

“In Maharashtra, local trains started running for essential service providers identified by the state government. It was easier to control the crowd by adopting a pass-based system. Here, there is no way to stop a person with a ticket from entering a station. We can only stop a person without a mask,” said an official of the Howrah division.

Public health experts and doctors fear that a reduced fleet and absence of access control at small stations in suburbs will trigger a surge in Covid cases.

The Sealdah division has around 175 stations in the suburban section. There are 28 RPF posts and around 40 GRP posts. “We need at least three cops at every station. They have to work in two shifts. Without the state government’s help, it is impossible to have every station manned,” said an official of the Sealdah division.

The frequency of the trains will be adjusted according to the time of the day, said railway officials. Some of the suburban stations are small but see a huge rush during office hours. Three men in uniform are unlikely to be able to control hundreds of people.

The initial plan is to run trains with 50 per cent seating capacity, Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Bengal’s chief secretary, had said after a meeting with railway officials on Monday. The seating capacity of a suburban train is 1,200. A packed suburban train in rush hours carries well over 2,500 people.

Multiple railway officials on Wednesday said it was almost impossible to adhere to the plan. An official of the Howrah division said additional services were not ruled out on the first few days if there were too many passengers.

State government officials present at the meeting said the SoP had to be framed by this weekend and the railways had to advertise the schedule and time table of the trains extensively.

“We are in sync with the state government. It is a good thing that the suburban trains will finally start running from Wednesday,” said Aneet Dulat, the additional general manager of Eastern Railway.

“The resumption of trains is welcome. But the number of trains has to be sufficient. Otherwise, social distancing protocols will go for a toss,” said Rabi Biswas, a resident of Seoraphuli in Hooghly who was a local train regular before the Covid pandemic.

“The trains barely had an inch to stand in the morning and evening rush hours. Fewer trains will only add to the rush,” said Biswas, who works at a pharmacy store in Burrabazar.

Like hundreds of others from his hometown, Biswas has been travelling to the city and back in crowded buses over the past few months.