Senior citizen travel has been impacted by the removal of concessions given to them by the government. She added that due to the lack of job security in the cities, rural women were the quickest to take up jobs in rural areas, rather than wait to return to cities after the pandemic. Most took up other jobs in their villages and towns during the pandemic," another railway official said. "Women who were earlier traveling to nearby cities and towns daily for work have fallen. Railway officials said that fewer rural women are traveling to cities and towns to look for work since the outbreak of the pandemic. A large portion of the urban population has stopped moving cities for work and, therefore, has stopped traveling back during the festival period. At its peak, this number had reached 13 percent back in 2018-19," the official said.Īccording to data presented by the Ministry of Railways, 5,321.69 million people travelled by train in 2022-23 (until January 10, 2023), compared to 8,086 million passengers in FY 2019-20, and 8,439 million passengers in 2018-19.Ī second railway official said that as the overall passenger traffic had fallen, trains were relatively emptier, which raised concerns about the safety of such women passengers.Īs the workforce moved to work-from-home and hybrid models, the railways witnessed lower passenger traffic than pre-Covid levels. "Women passengers travelling solo (or in groups) make up 5-6 percent of the total passenger traffic at present. The total passenger traffic of the Indian Railways still trails behind pre-pandemic levels.
The share of such passengers as a percentage of the overall traffic is also lower than pre-pandemic levels. He added that in 2019-20 around 900 million of such women passengers had travelled by train. "From the tickets we can see that around 250 million women passengers travelled solo or in groups along with other women, in FY2022-23, till January," a senior government official said.
It seems it has also impacted railway travel for solo women passengers. Pandemic-related disruptions have had a far-reaching impact on every aspect of life. As the world celebrates Women’s Day it is time to introspect what has improved for women and what has not.
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