MUMBAI: A change in the station code of Mumbai Central , which will come into effect on February 1, 2018, has led to huge confusion among passengers planning to book tickets from this station to various destinations in western India and New Delhi.

The railways has decided to change the station code of Mumbai Central from BCT to MMCT from February 1, 2018. Since reservations can be made four months in advance, those booking tickets for trains departing on this date were unable to get Mumbai Central as the originating or destination station. This led to chaos and social media was abuzz with rumours that Mumbai Central station would be shut for long-distance trains from February 1 onward.

Western Railway had announced the code change in October. To curb rumours, Western Railway again clarified on Monday, “WR has decided to replace the station code of Mumbai Central main (BCT) and Mumbai Central local (BCL) with MMCT with effect from February 1, 2018. Accordingly, the new code has been defined in all Passenger Reservation Centres (PRC) and on the IRCTC website with effect from this date.”

Borivli resident Dhimant Bhatt said, “At first I did not believe the social media messages about Mumbai Central station being shut. However, somebody sent me screenshots of the train schedule displayed on the IRCTC booking app. It shows all trains that originate from Mumbai Central had originating stations as either Dadar, Andheri or Borivli.”

A booking clerk at the Passenger Reservation Centre (PRS) said, “There may be a problem with the IRCTC app because there was no issue with bookings done at the counters when we made entries with the new code ie MMCT and not BCT.”

Shree Naik, another commuter said, “I was trying to book the ticket by entering the station code as BCT and was shocked to see Rajdhani originating from Borivli. After I read the WR tweets, I figured the correct code to be fed for trains departing from February 1 is MMCT. On entering the new code, I was able to book the ticket from Mumbai Central.”

