Mumbai: Barred from luggage compartment, fisherfolk to approach Bombay High Court

Fisherfolk have opposed the option given to them by railways as they don`t want to transport their wares when they could load them onto a train that stops at Palghar. Representation pic

After mid-day's report on the Palghar fishermen who have reportedly been driven out of the luggage compartment in trains, the Western Railway Mumbai officials held a meeting on October 3 with the stakeholders. However, since they failed to come up with a solution, the fishing community has now decided to approach the Bombay High Court to get back their transport means.

The fisherfolk community, which uses trains to transport their stock, had complained that they were being thrown out of their age-old regular connecting trains by parcel operators at Palghar, who have taken over all the luggage compartments. For more than 50 years, these fishermen have been plying their trade through the parcel vans of the Uttar Pradesh-bound train 19019 and said to face such discrimination on the 75th (Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav) Anniversary of Indian Independence was quite shocking. Kolis here have been in the business of supplying seafood to northern states of India.

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Activists said the railways was ironically losing existing traffic for new businesses. The railways had launched Business Development Units (BDUs) in recent years in all the zones to attract new traffic and increase rail share to interact with industries and to facilitate them for carrying consignments by rail, but WR here seems to be doing exactly the opposite.

Western Railway officials said they held a meeting with all stakeholders and have given the fishing community the ‘appropriate option' of loading their wares in the train at the originating point at Bandra Terminus. Officials said the problem with the 19019 Haridwar Express started in September 2022.

"Earlier, till September 14, the train ran with regular ICF-type coaches which had four second-class luggage compartments, out of which three compartments were on lease through the tendering process and one remained available for railway-booked consignments. On September 15, the train was converted into an upgraded LHB-class train, in which only two second-class luggage compartments are available for parcel loading. As per the parcel policy, the two parcel coaches were allotted to the two highest leaseholders, resulting in no compartment remaining for railway booking," an official said.

Fishermen have refused to accept the option. "This means we will have to transport our wares all the way from Palghar to Bandra by road, just to load them onto the train, when it halts at Palghar. We have never faced any problem with the railways in the past 50 years and this is for the first time that this is happening. The railways can always attach an additional coach. We have decided to protest outside the Churchgate headquarters and move the Bombay High Court to seek justice," President of Akhil Maharashtra Macchimar Kruti Samiti Devendra Tandel said.