Chennai: Southern Railway reverted the price of platform tickets from Rs 50 to Rs 10 in some of the stations where it was hiked following the advent of the Coronavirus crisis, thus signaling the start of the normalization of train services.
The price of platform tickets in Dr MGR Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Tambaram, Chengalpattu, Arakkonam and Katpadi railway stations were rolled back to the pre-Covid times on Thursday.
The extraordinary hike in platform ticket rates were introduced with a view to controlling the crowds at the stations after the pandemic broke, necessitating the maintaining of social distancing to curb its spread.
The railways also made several other changes in its rail services like taking off unreserved coaches and allowing only passengers with confirmed tickets inside the station.
Even the train numbers of timings were changed to ensure that there was no crowding inside the coaches or at the platforms.
By slowly reverting to the old times, many of the old services were restored one after the other. Reducing the price of platform tickets in the otherwise crowded stations in Chennai division thus makes the rates uniform all over.
