Didi's scorecard

WRu00a0commuters have reasons to rejoice as 40 of 47 new local train services announced in rail budget are for that line; those usingu00a0CR are obviously peeved

THE railway budget, announced yesterday, has given rise to conflicting emotions on either end of the suburban railway's western-central divide.



While officials and commuters of the Western Railway (WR) are ecstatic at being handed an unexpected bounty of 40 out of 47 new services, those of the Central Railway (CR) are at a loss to decide how they should even begin to react to their share of seven.

"It has been decided to give the major portion of additional services to WR as they need it more. They can decide about the allocation of the services based on commuter requirements," said a railway board official who was privy to the budget-making process.

"We will try to allot the maximum possible services to the Borivli-Virar stretch as that is one of our weaker sections and more trains are needed there. As of now, none of the new services will be for Churchgate," said Sharat Chandrayan, chief spokesperson, WR.

CR officials, on the other hand, said the allocation, like many other things, was unjust. "This is not done. Why has WR received so many new services and we have been allocated only seven?

Even at the time of procuring the new rakes, they were the ones who were preferred. They have nearly 60 rakes of the newer variety and we have only 44.

I agree that we were given 101 new services last year, but we have so many passengers travelling on our network everyday. Our network is bigger than that of the Western Railway since we also have the harbour line," said a senior CR official.

When MiD DAY called up V A Malegaonkar, chief spokesperson, CR, he said, "I have no idea about the allocation yet. It will be decided by the railway board later. Only the announcement of additional services was made today."

'Biased'

Madhu Kotian, President, Mumbai Pravasi Railway Sangh, called the allocation biased. "If the number of passengers and number of stations are to be seen, CR should be allocated more services, not the WR.
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Although the allocation is decided by the board based on the proposals received from the concerned railway, passengers aren't benefitted much as they have to travel in the same kind of rush."

Kotian's views were echoed by members of other passenger associations as well. Shailendra Kamble, convenor, Pravas Adhikar Andolan Samiti, which has agitated for more services between Borivli and Virar several times in the past, said he has doubts whether the plans would actually come to fruition.



"We are happy to hear that they are planning to introduce more services between these stations but I doubt that WR authorities will actually implement their plans. They talk a lot but do very little. We need more services in peak hours and we still don't know whether these new services will be during peak hours or non-peak ones."

Passengerspeak

Sanjay Mane, who travels from Vasai Road to Marine Lines every day, said, "I am happy that the railway authorities have taken cognisance of our problems and are doing something to address them. Travelling on the Borivli-Virar stretch is nightmarish and I have witnessed many accidents caused by the heavy rush."

An angry Sunita Singh, who travels from Kalyan to Sandhurst Road, however, said, "We are stuffed in the trains like animals and the railway authorities simply don't care. They should have at least thought a little about CR passengers before allocating all the services to WR."

Upgradation
In accordance with the budget, WR and CR will convert nearly 107 services from 9-car rakes to 12-car ones. These will be run on the Thane-Vashi, Thane-Panvel, Borivli-Virar, Andheri-Virar, Bandra-Virar and Churchgate-Virar sections.

Number game
Rakes
CR: 117, with 44 of the newer variety (including harbour)
WR: 76, with 60 of the newer variety

Services
CR: 1,573
WR: 1,210

Passengers per day
CR: 37 lakh
WR: 33 lakh

Distance (in kms)
CR
CST-Khopoli: 122
CST-Karjat: 100
CST-Kasara: 124
CST-Kalyan: 53
WR
Churchgate-Virar:u00a0 60