Frustrated commuters halt operations at Badlapur railway station on Friday in protest of constant delays in train services. (Photo: Asian Age)
Frustrated commuters halt operations at Badlapur railway station on Friday in protest of constant delays in train services. (Photo: Asian Age)
Officials have maintained that the only solution to incidents like Friday’s Badlapur protest is Central Railway’s (CR) 5th-and-6th-line project, where the two lines will be used exclusively by express and long-distance trains.
However, they told The Asian Age that construction work on the lines will not be completed before the current deadline — March 2017 — as the area between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST)-Kurla, where land acquisition seems to be next to impossible, has proven problematic.
“CR has decided to shift the proposed lines between CST and Kurla from the mainline to the Harbour line between the latter’s Dockyard Road and CST stations. The file (of the proposal) was sent to the Railway Board in Delhi more than a week ago,” said a railway official on the condition of anonymity.
This means that a brand new plan will be chalked out.
“The issue is that these lines have been in the offing for a long time and now the alignment has changed so we have to wait for the board’s approval all over again. The work on Thane to Kurla is going on, even if it is at a snail’s pace Until this separate line comes up all the way to CST, there will be no relief for commuters,” said the official.
The procedure around alignments includes several steps, and the CR has taken the first one: sending the new alignment proposal to Delhi. After this, the Railway Board asks for a detailed project report (DPR) for the same.
When the DPR is finalised, the CR will have to send it to Delhi, where it might be changed. After a few rounds of back and forth the proposal is finally sent to the railway minister.
Activists like Lata Argade said they have been crying themselves hoarse over the issue. “We have repeatedly asked them to fasten the pace of the 5th and 6th line project. It is a sad fact that (we need to) wait for incidents like Friday’s and the riot that occurred in Diva last year to understand the gravity of the situation,” said Ms Argade.
