Nirupam also criticised the bullet train project and blamed former Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu for showing apathy to tweets by commuters.
Attacking former Railway Minister Suresh Parabhu for not paying attention to several complaints by commuters about over crowding at Elphinstone-Parel railway Foot Over Bridge (FOB), Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam said that he will soon lead a survey of all such dangerous railway FOBs and submit a detailed report.
“Commuters used to daily tweet to Suresh Prabhu photographs as well as complaints about this FOB and how it could lead to a stampede but all these complaints were ignored and it was due to this apathy of the Railways that 22 innocent lives perished on Friday for no fault for theirs. It's a shame that while on one hand railways cannot manage safety on its FOBs, it wants to start Bullet Trains from Mumbai,” said Nirupam who visited the Elphinstone station on Saturday morning for a condolence meet.
Nirupam also shared that he along with his team will begin visiting all railway stations and conduct a detailed survey of such FOBs that were narrow and overcrowded, since they were sitting ducks for similar stampedes. The report will be compiled and submitted to both Western and Central Railway.
"We don't want a repeat of such tragedies, several places like Elphinstone, Curry Road, Lower Parel and others, which used to see a footfall of less than 75,000 now have over three lakhs commuters moving in and out as offices and other commercial spaces have shifted here. However railways have not upgraded the infrastructure of several stations like these as per the increasing footfalls thus putting the life of commuters at risk,” he alleged stating that they will pressurise Railways to take this issue seriously.
Citizen Mahesh Walawalkar who commutes daily to Elphinstone from Jogeshwari said that it was sad that politicians were using this tragedy to gain brownie points. “Why were they waiting till now for carrying out such a survey. Things will only change if murder charges are filed against top railways officials as well, as only then due to fear they will take these issues seriously,” he said.
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 "Sanjay Nirupam")
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