Western Railway to start Virar-Dahanu locals soon

Soon there will be local trains plying between Virar and Dahanu Road on the Western Railway, the Bombay High Court said on Thursday.

A Public Interest Litigation was filed seeking the commencement of local train services between the two stations. An affidavit filed by Deputy Chief Operations Manager, Western Railway, PL Kurian stated that “The conversion from DC to AC traction had been completed on February 5 and whenever adequate rakes were made available with the Western Railway the existing services on Virar-Dahanu Road section would be converted into EMU (Electric Multiple Unit) services and would be introduced as announced in the Railway budget.”

Senior Counsel Benny Chatterjee and advocate Sunil Kumar who represented the Western Railways in court said “The work has been completed and before March 31, 2013 the service will be operational.”

Division bench of Justice DD Sinha and Justice VK Tahilramani after recording their statement disposed of the PIL.

A municipal corporator of the Vasai and Virar Municipal Corporation had moved the court seeking directions to the railways to start direct local trains from Churchgate to Dahanu and Virar to Dahanu.

The PIL stated that there are thousands of railway commuters who travel daily from Dhanu. The railways had initiated the project in 2002 and said that in 2007 the train system would be functional but it has still not started.

It added that with the ever growing population of people staying in areas beyond Virar there is an urgent need of direct trains to ease commuters' troubles.