Rly far removed from realty
By Kamal Mishra
Bulk of Mumbai has shifted to the suburbs due to property prices, but local services remain where they were: few and far between.
Ever since overcrowding in the locals killed Dombivali-based software engineer Bhavesh Nakate in November — the chilling incident was captured in a video circulated widely — the administration, the judiciary and the railways have been engaged in frenzied problem-solving to normalise the metropolitan’s abnormal load of commuters.
As more and more Mumbaikars are ousted farther into distant suburbs by shrinking spaces and astronomical property prices, the commuting dynamics have inverted.
So where Churchgate and Mumbai Central on the western line, and CST and Byculla on the central line were once the most packed stations with the swamped Dadar as their intersection, the jostling crowds have shifted further northward to Nalasopara, Dombivali and Panvel along the western, central and harbour lines, respectively.
In fact, Nalasopara and Panvel recorded tremendous commuter growth in the last five years (see box), but the number of services provisioned for these stations has not risen in the same proportion. This key shift is something the authorities have omitted from their equation to even out the crowding, and until the solution takes into account this dynamic, no tweaks in the system will help.
For instance, the number of services originating from Dombivali station, which an RTI query by activist Anil Galgali has now revealed to be the most crowded with roughly 2.34 lakh passengers, is a paltry 56 — just one up from 2010, when the station had 30,000 less passengers.
“Unless the railways changes train time tables, makes new train terminals and starts more trains from the suburbs, the problem will prevail,” Galgali said.
Moreover, the number of trains that pass through Dombivali, which was 588 back then, is 611 now — hopelessly incommensurate with the boom in population, which stands at approximately 10,00,000 today.
As such, those who have chosen the suburbia to relocate to now have the dystopia of the local to live through. The movement has injected far-flung suburbs such as Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Nalasopara and Panvel with as many residents as there were in 2001, leading to a doubling of the population and adding to passenger load. This has also bumped up the mishap figures at these places, vis-àvis CST or Churchgate.
“Currently 56 originating and terminating services operate daily from Dombivali. Of these, only six start in the morning peak hours. That’s why boarding a train here is a horror,” said Vishwanath Wibalkar, cofounder of Eagle Brigade, an NGO devoted to commuters’ welfare.
Rajiv Singhal, member of the National Rail Users Consultative Committee, said, “The trend of the movement of local commuters has totally changed, but the railways is working on the same tracks. They not only need to change the time table, but also introduce more trains from crowded stations like Dombivali and Nalasopara.”
In the west, Borivali still has the largest crowd, but not at the station. Here, Nalasopara station trumps it, seeing over 50,000 passengers more from what it witnessed five years ago.
Vinod Kumar, a real estate expert, said, “I am not surprised that Dombivali, Nalasopara and Panvel are now the major urban agglomerations, as housing is way cheaper as compared to Andheri, Dadar, Mumbai Central and so on.”
In wake of Nakate’s fatal fall, the railway minister had ordered for a high-level committee to be set up so it could find a solution to rein ion the overflowing crowds.
But the bureaucratic machinery that moves the railways is still tangled up in the report.
Asked why train frequency has not been increased in the last five years, especially from Dombivali, a senior Central Railway (CR) officer cited the as-yet unfinished project of increasing the number of lines between Diva and Dombivali. “The project of building 5th and 6th lines between Diva and Dombivali is still incomplete. That’s why CR is not able to add new services that start from Dombivali.”
CR, meanwhile, said that it is doing what it can. “We are trying our best. In the last five years, the carrying capacity of local trains was expanded by augmenting all 9-car trains to 12-car,” said AK Singh, CR’s public relations officer.
Bulk of Mumbai has shifted to the suburbs due to property prices, but local services remain where they were: few and far between.
Ever since overcrowding in the locals killed Dombivali-based software engineer Bhavesh Nakate in November — the chilling incident was captured in a video circulated widely — the administration, the judiciary and the railways have been engaged in frenzied problem-solving to normalise the metropolitan’s abnormal load of commuters.
But while the high court suggests staggering office timings and the railways congratulates itself on plying additional services or increasing seating capacity, the real problem lies elsewhere, in the realty.
As more and more Mumbaikars are ousted farther into distant suburbs by shrinking spaces and astronomical property prices, the commuting dynamics have inverted.
So where Churchgate and Mumbai Central on the western line, and CST and Byculla on the central line were once the most packed stations with the swamped Dadar as their intersection, the jostling crowds have shifted further northward to Nalasopara, Dombivali and Panvel along the western, central and harbour lines, respectively.
In fact, Nalasopara and Panvel recorded tremendous commuter growth in the last five years (see box), but the number of services provisioned for these stations has not risen in the same proportion. This key shift is something the authorities have omitted from their equation to even out the crowding, and until the solution takes into account this dynamic, no tweaks in the system will help.
For instance, the number of services originating from Dombivali station, which an RTI query by activist Anil Galgali has now revealed to be the most crowded with roughly 2.34 lakh passengers, is a paltry 56 — just one up from 2010, when the station had 30,000 less passengers.
“Unless the railways changes train time tables, makes new train terminals and starts more trains from the suburbs, the problem will prevail,” Galgali said.
Moreover, the number of trains that pass through Dombivali, which was 588 back then, is 611 now — hopelessly incommensurate with the boom in population, which stands at approximately 10,00,000 today.
As such, those who have chosen the suburbia to relocate to now have the dystopia of the local to live through. The movement has injected far-flung suburbs such as Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Nalasopara and Panvel with as many residents as there were in 2001, leading to a doubling of the population and adding to passenger load. This has also bumped up the mishap figures at these places, vis-àvis CST or Churchgate.
“Currently 56 originating and terminating services operate daily from Dombivali. Of these, only six start in the morning peak hours. That’s why boarding a train here is a horror,” said Vishwanath Wibalkar, cofounder of Eagle Brigade, an NGO devoted to commuters’ welfare.
Rajiv Singhal, member of the National Rail Users Consultative Committee, said, “The trend of the movement of local commuters has totally changed, but the railways is working on the same tracks. They not only need to change the time table, but also introduce more trains from crowded stations like Dombivali and Nalasopara.”
In the west, Borivali still has the largest crowd, but not at the station. Here, Nalasopara station trumps it, seeing over 50,000 passengers more from what it witnessed five years ago.
Vinod Kumar, a real estate expert, said, “I am not surprised that Dombivali, Nalasopara and Panvel are now the major urban agglomerations, as housing is way cheaper as compared to Andheri, Dadar, Mumbai Central and so on.”
In wake of Nakate’s fatal fall, the railway minister had ordered for a high-level committee to be set up so it could find a solution to rein ion the overflowing crowds.
But the bureaucratic machinery that moves the railways is still tangled up in the report.
Asked why train frequency has not been increased in the last five years, especially from Dombivali, a senior Central Railway (CR) officer cited the as-yet unfinished project of increasing the number of lines between Diva and Dombivali. “The project of building 5th and 6th lines between Diva and Dombivali is still incomplete. That’s why CR is not able to add new services that start from Dombivali.”
CR, meanwhile, said that it is doing what it can. “We are trying our best. In the last five years, the carrying capacity of local trains was expanded by augmenting all 9-car trains to 12-car,” said AK Singh, CR’s public relations officer.
