Rly pulls up socks after Fob stampede

Mumbai: Almost a year after the stampede at Elphinstone Road (now renamed Prabhadevi) railway station which killed 23 people and injured 39 others, the railway authorities seemed to have learned a lesson in terms of additional foot over-bridges (FOBs) and hawker-free FOBs.

Sunil Udasi, chief public relations officer, CR, said, “Railway minister Piyush Goyal's decision to include FOB works in the safety category instead of passenger amenities was a game-changer, thereby paving the way for construction on a war footing.”

Mr Udasi said that they had completed nearly 20 FOBs in less than a year, apart from dozens of escalators and lifts. Forty-four more FOBs were in pipeline at various stages of sanction and construction in the Mumbai division.        

Railway activist Subhash Gupta claimed that the hawkers had returned to stations like Kurla.