Central Railway's cancellation call lands commuters in trouble

The CR had earlier decided to cancel the Karjat halt on Intercity Express. File pic

The Central Railway, for the first time in its history, has decided to cancel, divert and short-terminate over 15 trains for a couple of weeks starting today. This will restrict railway commuting between Mumbai and Pune and has thus led to a severe backlash from passengers and commuter organisations.

Passengers said the co-ordination between commuter associations and the railway division head office had collapsed due to such "irrational" decisions, the earlier being the removal of the Karjat halt of Intercity Express to speed it up.

Railway officials said they were doing this after a series of landslides and boulder fall incidents in the ghat section and for track maintenance work in the southeast ghat region. Passengers from stations like Karjat are the most affected with such decisions.

Regular commuter and Karjat resident Nitin Parmar said that it will now become more difficult to travel on this route. "There are several office-goers, students and many others who travel daily between Mumbai and Pune. Since the day the railways decided to speed up the Intercity, there has been chaos at Karjat, causing overcrowding in other outstation trains. There are three lines in the ghats and the railways should repair one line at a time, not shut all three," Parmar, also a member of Zonal Railway Users Committee said.

"The Mumbai-Pune Intercity trials skipped Karjat station and now this. It will lead to major problems. All of us know that the trials have failed," Prabhakar Gangawane, a regular commuter and member of Karjat Railway Passengers Association said.

While the Deccan Express, Pragati Express, Mumbai-Gadag Express, and Panvel-Pune passenger train have been cancelled, others like the Kolhapur-Mumbai Koyna Express, Sayhadri Express, Hubballi LTT, Nanded-Panvel, will now terminate at Pune, mostly between July 26 and August 9.

'Should have planned well'

Parmar said such decisions are affecting their livelihood and he will resort to fasting at Karjat station from July 27.

"Could they not start work in early summer? There seems to be no study of loose boulders along, near and above the tracks. They should do such checks throughout the year like track maintenance. It is funny that those who booked tickets yesterday or day before suddenly received a text message this morning saying their train was cancelled. The IRCTC website, however, still shows the booking as confirmed," another commuter Srinivas Joshi said.

A CR spokesperson said, "To improve mobility, the Mumbai division has undertaken various infrastructure works. Due to this, the trains will be cancelled/short terminated/ diverted for the period."

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