The high-level railway safety committee has identified categorical reasons for the high death toll on Mumbai’s suburban railway network.
The high-level railway safety committee has identified categorical reasons for the high death toll on Mumbai’s suburban railway network.
Among the causes listed for the deaths are narrow platforms, lack of barricading, fencing, lack of adequate number of pedestrian over bridges and lack of facilities like sufficient number of platforms, escalators, elevators for the disabled and insufficient train services.
Activists in Mumbai said all these can be found easily in Mumbai and there have been formal complaints about them. “Take the case of crowded Dadar platform No. 1 on the Central Railway (CR). This can be easily converted into a double discharge platform as the land on the other side too belongs to the railways, but it has been encroached upon by hawkers and rail unions. An accident is waiting to happen at this place,’’ a commuter association member said.
The Dadar platform no. 1 on the Western Railway (WR) is too narrow to accommodate the growing crowd and has been cluttered with a large number of structures. Andheri and Borivli station’s platform one on WR too are a similar example.
At Parel, the south-end bridge is so crowded that there is almost a queue to use it. Same was the case with Elphinstone till the new footover bridge came up on the south side recently.
At Kurla, there are no fences near level crossing and children are seen crossing from the railway colony itself. Railway employees have left convenient gaps for the short cut to be retained. A footover bridge had been planned, but has stuck in red-tape.
As per the killer spots identified by railway police on the Central Railway are Karve Nagar slums at Kanjurmarg, Kasaiwada near Kurla, Harbour Line level crossing near Kurla railway colony, between Mulund-Thane at Kopri.
On the Western Line, the killer spots are at Ghasbazar crossing between Goregaon and Jogeshwari, at Kandivli station.
Local railway officials said there are plans on paper to barricade and fence the entire line and would be implemented soon.
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