'What's the use of trains if you reduce their connectivity?'

The new timetable was made with the help of IIT-B. File pic

The Indian Railways' move to skip a few halts to improve the speed and efficiency of trains and create corridors for maintenance and other trains is likely to snowball into a major controversy with several MPs and activists opposing the removal of halts and converting regular passenger trains into express ones.

Railway officials said the new Zero-Based Timetable (ZBTT), likely to come into force from December 1, has nationally removed more than 6,000 unnecessary halts of regular trains in a scientific manner, creating more elbow room to speed up passenger trains. The railways worked out the timetable with IIT-Bombay's help. As per the criteria, a halt should result in a minimum of 50 people embarking and disembarking in a day.

As per the proposal, 36 trains have been speeded up and upgraded on Central Railway (CR), 32 on Western Railway (WR) and six on Konkan Railway (KR).

Activists and politicians have called it unfair. "Many trains stopping at important stations, including Palghar and Saphale, won't stop there later. Palghar, a district headquarter, has been given minimal connectivity to Delhi and other places compared to other district HQs on WR. Most of the Mumbai-bound trains halt at Borivli (Mumbai), which is quite unfair as Maharashtra then has only one stop and the rest are in Gujarat," said Prathamesh Prabhutendokar of Dahanu Vaitarna Pravasi Sevabhavi Sanstha (DVPSS). He has written to the railways, local MPs and MLAs regarding the matter.

He said Palghar also has a huge Rajasthani population with links to Udaipur and Ajmer and that four pairs of mail express train halts and many shuttle, passenger, MEMU train halts on smaller stations like Saphale, Kelve, Vaitarna and Vangaon will be removed.

Responding to a query by Palghar MLA Sreenivas Wanga, WR said they had asked the concerned department to examine the case and study its feasibility.

'Consult MPs, passengers'

Akshay Mahapadi, a software engineer and passenger activist, opposed the removal of halts on KR and CR. "Converting the popular Diva-Sawantwadi passenger train to express, removal of Nandgaon Road halt for Tutari express, etc is unfair. Many stations have only one or two passenger train halts. Converting them into express will make stations useless for the public. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had mentioned 'Hub and Spoke' model to connect small stations to major railheads, but current planning does not show any additional service in lieu of cancelled services/halts. Some trains may be super hits if their slots are changed. Railways should work towards that by consulting local MPs and passenger associations, instead of cancelling services."

6k
Approx. no. of halts removed nationwide

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