Earlier it was considered to be the problem of the Central Railways, now it seems to have afflicted the Western Railways also. Train services running on the network have become irregular. Services come to a complete halt for 20-25 minutes due to signal failure or severing of overhead wires at various stations. Commuters agitated at Borivili recently to highlight the drop in punctuality of suburban services.
It has been observed that during the morning and evening rush hours, train services are extremely erratic. As a result of the delay in the morning, office-goers fail to reach their workplace on time. Vice versa even during the evening, they find it cumbersome to get home promptly.
The delay occurs daily and commuters and office-goers, irrespective of their working hours and rotational shift, are affected by the problem.
It is observed that many corporate offices mark their employees late, if they are delayed even by one minute due to the electronic system of recording attendance. Further, if the employee gets more than three late marks, it is considered a half day or sometimes they are marked absent.
The HR departments don’t factor genuine delays caused by trains running late. They also disregard that sometimes missing a train will disrupt the schedule of a commuter and the individual may skip his connecting train or public transport bus also. Finally the common man suffers for no fault.
Bhavesh Jani
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