Tragic death of Riya Rajgor, who fell off a train near Kopar station earlier this week, has again brought to the fore overcrowding of Mumbai suburban trains. It has also triggered the discussion about the rescheduling of office hours and staggered shifts, mooted by the Central Railway authorities last year. The bustling financial capital grapples with a suburban rail system handling 1,810 daily services for approximately 40 lakh passengers across 80 stations. With capacity exceeding 100%, the Mumbai Suburban Rail Network faces severe challenges during peak hours, witnessing a surge of 70% of daily commuters.
"There is only so much that we can do. There is absolutely no scope of additional services. We are running more trains than ever, but they are just not enough. Keeping this in mind, we had written over 350 letters to companies requesting them to explore staggered shifts or rescheduling of office hours so that the crowd can get spread over across the day and there is less amount of people on trains. But we received only about 15-20 responses from tiny organisations that employ just about 30 odd people. That is not going to help," said a CR official requesting anonymity.
The number of people falling off the trains and dying is just too huge to ignore. According to reports, 139 people died in such incidents over the last three months along, which makes about three people dying every two days. Rajgor was unable to board the ladies' compartment of a fast local train at Dombivli and was standing in the doorway when she slipped and fell as the train left Kopar station at high speed. She sustained fatal head injuries and later succumbed to them. This was the second such incident on the CR line between Dombivli and Thane in the past four days. On April 25, Avadhesh Dubey, 25, died after falling off a train between Diva and Thane. GRP officials said Rajgor was the 10th person to die due to overcrowding on this stretch in the last two months.
According to officials, they are working towards adding additional tracks from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to Karjat and Kasara, but the track building will take years. "The incident is very unfortunate. There is one local train every three minutes. CR appeals to all passengers to travel safely. We are working on feasible solutions to avoid overcrowding," Central Railway’s Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO), Dr Swapnil Nila, told LokmatTimes.com.
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As Riya’s family demanded to check the CCTV footage of the ladies' coach, CR officials informed that there are 606 CCTV cameras out of the total 771 ladies' coaches. They stated that the family could check the footage by asking GRP and RPF officers. They also appealed to passengers to engage in moral and ethical behaviour by not pushing fellow passengers and travelling safely.