Mumbai: Panvel station remodelling work sows chaos at Kurla

Nearly 4 lakh people use Kurla station every day. Pic/Courtesy Suhel Makandar

The ill-planned remodelling work of Panvel station and the extended work blocks without notice and information to commuters, are leading to a stampede-like situation every day during peak hours on a narrow bridge at Kurla station. Passengers particularly blame chaos on a foot overbridge towards Kalyan-end, half of which is under repair, with only half open for their use.

A stampede at the Elphinstone station had killed 23 people in 2017. "A narrow bridge at Kurla station is so packed it could see a stampede-like situation. The possibility of an accident cannot be ruled out if proper steps are not taken in time. There are hundreds of trains coming one after another and there are lakhs of passengers. The railways are ignoring everything, and will wake up only when there is an incident," Chandan Vichare, a commuter who took videos and photos of the extremely crowded bridge, which went viral on Thursday.

The CR says they will deploy more manpower to control the crowd. Pic/Rupesh Makwana

‘Take action'

Another commuter, Rajendra Poojary said, "The Kurla railway bridge (toward Kalyan-end) is heavily crowded every day due to repair work. It is our earnest appeal to the Railways to please take action to control the crowd. Otherwise, a major stampede will happen. Urgent intervention is required."

At least 3,80,030 people use Kurla station every day as per a survey by the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation. "Are you waiting for a stampede to occur at Kurla railway station? The foot overbridge towards Kalyan-side has become very dangerous. Half the bridge is under repair, unusable, and half is open for public usage. Lives are at stake, please understand," another commuter, Sneha Shenoy, said.

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"Kurla station on the harbour section is dangerous and may face a stampede. The two new bridges built are of no use to divert the traffic," commuter Rupesh Makwana said.

This picture of the bridge and videos of it shot by a commuter, Chandan Vichare went viral

The problems

Kurla station has become a sad story of railway inefficiency. Work on the elevated harbour station has been undertaken by the construction department of the Central Railway which is unable to complete it due to land acquisition issues. Till the work on the elevated station is completed, other bridges remain in a limbo. The recently reconstructed BMC bridge at the Kalyan end of the station was also incomplete and as an afterthought, converted into a railway bridge by opening landings on the platforms. The narrow end of the bridge has also its floor removed and replaced with tin sheets, but most of the work is on hold due to incomplete station work. Railway managers have been unable to find a solution to the problem leading to passenger inconvenience.

Commuters on the harbour and trans-harbour line have been suffering due to ill-planned station remodelling work by the railways, updates of which are not being provided timely leading to chaos. Divisional railway officials promised to deploy manpower and RPF to monitor the crowds. "The station is in the middle of an upgrade and things will look up in some days. We will monitor the crowds at the station to avoid a stampede-like situation," a railway official said. "There were delays along the harbour line for some part of the day and we had to restrict services between Belapur and Panvel. The block work will continue for the next few days and commuters should plan their journey accordingly," CR chief public relations officer Dr Shivraj Manaspure said.

What is happening at Panvel

Panvel station and yard are being remodelled to include two new rail tracks of the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) for the past few weeks. For this purpose, two new sets of tracks and platforms have been laid on the east side of the station for suburban railway and two existing tracks presently used by suburban railway are being freed for the DFC. Even as this work had been scheduled, a derailment just before the blocks began last week put all harbour line services out of gear, leading to a series of delays, detentions and frustration among commuters.

The scheduled work block burst and was extended without keeping commuters in the loop. Even as all this was happening, the platform numbers at Panvel station were renumbered without giving prior notice to commuters, leading to further chaos. Work is now expected to continue for the next few days in the night but all this has been having repercussions through the day on harbour and trans-harbour services, leading to chaos and crowding at other major stations like Kurla and Thane, which are main change-over points for harbour and trans-harbour commuters respectively.

3,80,030
Average daily footfall at Kurla station as per an MRVC survey