The fateful railway station.

Piyush Goyal cracks the whip for more rly safety; Congress tears into Modi govt

Need to upgrade rly amenities, not change ministers, import Bullet Train

Agency Report | Mumbai/Panaji/New Delhi | 29 September, 2017 | 10:30 PM

Hours after a stampede left 22 commuters dead and 39 others injured, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal ordered a slew of initiatives to beef up commuters' safety and security on the Mumbai suburban network. But the Congress tore into the BJP government and mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his claims of efficiency and said that if that was so then he should take over the railway ministry.

Holding a series of meetings with high-ranking officials of Western Railway and Central Railway, he ordered setting up of multi-disciplinary teams to visit and inspect all suburban stations and identify areas of concern.

The teams would identify critical locations prone to similar situations and draw up suitable action plans to tackle them.

Ongoing works on foot overbridges at various stations would be completed on a war-footing and additional FOBs would be immediately planned out at other stations where passenger traffic is high.

Goyal also directed the railways to draw up plans for all suburban stations to upgrade their electronic surveillance by installing CCTVs in a time-bound manner.

The WR and CR will be required to resolve within one week all their pending issues with other agencies concerned like the Maharashtra government, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, City and Industrial Development Corporation, etc.

Goyal also said that any concessions required to accommodate space constraints at railway platforms would be sorted out immediately.

There are around 135 stations on the entire suburban network, comprising WR, CR and the Harbour Line, spread across Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts, catering to over 8 million suburban commuters daily.

The distances covered are up to 123 km on the WR from its starting point, Churchgate and more than 70 km on the CR in different directions from the starting point, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus.

The two networks share one common railway station, Dadar which is considered the busiest and most congested on the entire suburban network.

The minister’s directions came in the wake of a stampede which killed 22 commuters, including eight women, at the WR’s Elphinstone Road station bridge connecting with Parel on the CR, around 10.20 am at the morning peak hour rush of office-bound commuters.

Late this evening, the WR announced that then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had cleared the proposal to construct a new FOB costing Rs 6.75 crore, running parallel to the existing bridge which was the site of the tragedy today and tender documents were readied this month.

Earlier on Friday, Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale had said that he had demanded the widening of the (existing) bridge in a letter to Prabhu in April 2015, but it was rejected citing the paucity of funds and operational constraints.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take over the railway portfolio, instead of making hollow boasts of efficiency, state Congress president Shantaram Naik said on Friday.

In a statement issued here, the former Rajya Sabha member also questioned the expenditure of thousands of crores of rupees on the bullet train project when existing railway infrastructure was in a bad shape.

“The railway portfolio should be taken over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who always boasts of his efficiency and goes on giving lectures to even world leaders — and prove himself,” Naik said in his statement, soon after a stampede at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road Railway Station left at least 22 dead and dozens of commuters injured.

“If Modi takes over the railway, he will have to judge himself on merit and resign as Prime Minister if any major railway tragedy takes place,” he also said.

Naik further said: “A Prime Minister, who thinks of taking loan worth (thousands of) crores of rupees to launch a bullet train when the railway infrastructure is crying for help and hundreds of thousands of citizens in the country are sleeping on railway platforms and footpaths, has no right to be in the office”.
Criticising the railways for “criminal negligence” resulting in the death of at least 22 persons, the Congress also advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “change the face of the railways and not ministers”.

“We would like to tell the Prime Minister that you can’t placate the public by just changing railway ministers. If you have to change anything, change the railways’ face,” Congress spokesperson and Lok Sabha MP Sushmita Dev said here.

After a series of rail accidents, Modi shifted Suresh Prabhu out of the Railway Ministry in a Cabinet reshuffle earlier this month and elevated Piyush Goyal as the new Railway Minister.
“The Prime Minister should give real solutions to the Railway Ministry rather than changing Railway Ministers. This is a huge dereliction of duty on his (Narendra Modi’s) part,” she added.

Dev said the Narendra Modi government had “misplaced priorities” and that instead of spending money on bullet trains, the government should focus on improving railways’ basic infrastructure.

She said while the railways had hiked the cost of platform ticket from Rs 10 to Rs 20 in view of the festival rush, it had not cared to take measures to increase passenger safety.

“Time and again, the commuters have complained about the safety of this foot overbridge. Even the Central Railway in 2015 had accepted that this heritage bridge linking Parel and Elphinstone Road stations was ‘structurally weak’ and had decided to direct the footfall to the other bridge connecting Dadar and Parel by extending it to the eastern end of Parel as a temporary measure,” Dev said.

“But due to slow progress of work and criminal negligence of the railway authorities, no concrete action was taken,” she added.

The Congress demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident and asked the government to raise the compensation amount to “at least Rs 50 lakh” from Rs 5 lakh announced by the government.

“There is 1.42 lakh vacant posts in the railway safety department. The next of kin of railway accident victims should be given those jobs so that their kitchens keep running,” Dev said.

The Congress spokesperson also asked for a safety audit of all foot overbridges, platforms and overhead bridges in the entire Mumbai suburban railway system.

“The Modi government has raised railway tariff by 70 per cent in the last three years. As many as 259 passengers have been killed and 973 injured in 29 major railway accidents that have occurred since the Modi government took office,” she pointed out.

She also questioned the wisdom of merging the Railway Budget with the General Budget on the pretext of increasing railways’ revenue share.

“The Modi government merged the Railway Budget with the General Budget so that the railways do not have to pay the annual dividend they have to pay for gross budgetary support from the government every year. This means that the railways should have enough money to spend on improving infrastructure and safety,” she said.

The Congress demanded implementation of the Bibek Debroy and Anil Kakodkar committees’ recommendations on railway safety. (IANS)