A stampede at Mumbai’s Bandra Railway Terminal on Sunday morning injured around 10 persons. The incident occurred while large crowds of people — ordinary workforce from the metropolis — were trying to board the Bandra-Gorakhpur Antyodaya Express in the early morning hours. That train had only unreserved general compartments, with no previous bookings, leading to the massive surge for seats when it was brought to platform-1. The doors were locked from inside. The natural impatience of the crowds that took tickets to board the train and get a seat to reach their homes from Mumbai during the Diwali and Chhath festival season is understandable. They might have waited the whole night at the station to board the train.
The incident is symptomatic of the chaos in India’s rail system/services due to lack of effective governmental intervention. This is a common spectacle at every railway terminal. During the festival season, especially, the rush is such that reservations are simply not possible for most people. A change a week ago was to limit the advance booking time to two months. This is ‘small’ comfort. Even then, during such seasons, reservations close in a day or two. For the rest of the months-long period, the only way is to wait for the Tatkal reservations. This too closes in a matter of a few minutes. The entire migrant workforce from the eastern sector, mainly UP and Bihar, as also others, are at the receiving end during the festival seasons. The railways are simply not bothered other than the introduction of a few special trains. Instead, if bookings close in the first few days of their start, the effort should be to provide more special trains to that sector to accommodate the additional load. This would require the railways to keep more trains in reserve for special runs. Festivals keep coming up almost every month and there’s the summer holiday rush. The pathetic plight of the ordinary people to get bookings and travel by train is only to be seen or experienced to be understood. As in every other field, the poor and the ordinary people are given a raw deal. Since politicians enjoy special privileges in getting seats/berths, they have little understanding/concern over the plight of others.
Other than marginal and cosmetic changes and a minor increase in speed, there has been no substantive improvement in the functioning of railways in the ten years of Modi dispensation. Add to that the number of train accidents this year alone and its small comfort for the millions of Indians who rely on trains for their transportation. In 2014, during Modi’s first tenure, the government aimed at rail safety and introduction of bullet trains in select routes. Safety has improved though there were some major disasters in recent years. The bullet train project, as in the case of every project, faced odds and has not materialised as yet. A lazy style of governance is evident in the railway sector too.
