Mumbai: Suburban services on Central Railway were disrupted during the evening peak hours on Tuesday after a technical snag in the engine of the CST-Howrah Duronto train, which halted on the tracks for almost an hour near Parel. CR officials said four services had to be cancelled. Trains ran late by 30-40 minutes due to bunching of locals.
The engine suffered a technical snag around 5.30pm. CR then rushed an alternate engine to the spot, after which the train was able to move out
around 6.45pm. Three suburban trains, which were following this train, got blocked for almost one hour. Sanjay More, a commuter, said, “I saw commuters jumping from the train to walk all the way up to Dadar.”
...
Read more...

Vidya Rane, a Thane commuter, said, “I had planned to watch a movie with my friends. But my plan fell through after I took a 7.04pm fast train from CST. By 7.45pm, it had not even managed to cross Dadar.”
Commuters are upset with the frequent snags on CR, especially during the peak hour. Rajesh Sawant, a Dombivli resident, said, “The trains come to a halt, either due to OHE failure, signal failure or track failure.” Dumper hits train A minor mishap took place at Vithalwadi on Tuesday when a dumper carrying garbage hit a train standing at the station. The mishap delayed the train by 15 minutes. —Pradeep Gupta

Mumbai:Lakhsof passengers trying to book tickets through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporations (IRCTC) website had a tough time on Thursday. The portal wasunabletohandletheexcess demand due to the onset of Diwali vacations. Either the web page would not load or the passengerscouldn’tlog in.In some cases, the process got aborted whilesearching for trains.
Pradip Kundu,joint general manger, public relations, IRCTC, said, “There was some problem during the morning hours but the situation did improve by evening. It happened because too many people were trying to accessthewebsitedue tothe vacation period.”
The IRCTC has blamed too many hits during the peak demand period for the failure. An official said, “Many people wanttospendDiwaliwiththeir families.They havebeen trying to book tickets under the tatkal quota. The system is not able to...
Read more...

handleso many hits.”
According to rules,booking for tatkal quota begins a daybefore the train’s departure date. Since it is impossible to get a confirmed berth by regular booking, many people try their luckunder thetatkal quota.
Ajay Shah, a Mulund resident, said, “I stayed back at hometobooktheticketfrom my personal computer. I have been trying since morning but the siteisexcruciatingly slow.Iwas not abletocompletethe process tobooktheticket.” Thisthesecond time in three months that theIRCTCwebsitehasbeen unabletofunction properly.

WR & CR
As soon as a crisis occurs, the railways (Western and Central Railway) will have to inform agencies, most importantly the state government’s relief and rehabilitation department and the BMC, through a hotline
If there is a drivers’ strike, the railways will have to arrange for alternative motormen
People have to be allowed to travel on operative railway lines with existing tickets or passes
GOVT
Government departments like home, and relief and rehabilitation have to be ready with plans for coordination with private organizations for actions like holding back people to avoid congestion and subsequent staggered dispersal
...
Read more...

Government departments also have to be ready with state assistance, if required POLICE
The traffic police have to coordinate with BEST and MSRTC for traffic management, reducing congestion and directing an increased load of passengers to private vehicles
The city police have to deploy personnel in coordination with other agencies to maintain law and order in view of increased crowd volume at places like major stations. On Wednesday, for example, fears of a stampede arose at Dadar station, necessitating police deployment BMC
The municipality has to on priority relay information to BEST to arrange for additional buses, especially at transit points like Dadar and Kurla. MSRTC must be ready with state buses if the need arises for them to be deployed within the city
To avoid congestion on streets, it has to ask offices to hold people back and allow them out in a staggered manner
In business districts like Nariman Point, every major building has to appoint two emergency contact persons (ECPs) for the BMC’s benefit
The BMC also has to coordinate with the traffic police and the transport department for route diversion

Mumbai: On Wednesday, for the second time in five months, the railways failed to inform the BMC about an emergency affecting its services. In July, it was from TV channels that the BMC learnt of the Western Railway motormen’s flash strike, which disrupted train services for three to four hours.
“The railways never inform us about any disruption. Each time, it is us who take flak for failing to coordinate with them effectively,” said a senior BMC official. “During the strike, the seriousness of the matter was brought home when we got a distress call on our helpline from a distraught husband whose seven-month pregnant wife was stranded on a train between Matunga and Mahim. We arranged for an ambulance to pick her up.”
Former chief...
Read more...

secretary Ratnakar Gaikwad said there was a need for an administrative mechanism for the railways to coordinate with all civic agencies in times of crisis. “I feel either the additional chief secretary (home) or the chief secretary should be appointed as an authority to tackle any disasters in Mumbai.”

It was a commuter who alerted the BMC about the disaster that visited Central Railway (CR) on Wednesday evening. Only when his call came—a few minutes after 6pm—did the municipality learn that half an hour before, services on both of CR’s lines had stopped.
Mahesh Narvekar, the chief officer of BMC’s disaster management cell, said that had the civic body been infor med immediately about the disruption, it would have ensured that people stopped going to CST, thus preventing crowding at the station.
But the railways said on Thursday that an incident like a pantograph fault did not amount to a disaster and so it did not deem it important to inform the BMC.
...
Read more...

CR’s chief public relations officer V A Malegaonkar said, “Disaster in the context of the railways is a serious train accident caused by human/equipment failure. It includes severe disruption that may affect normal movement of train services, with loss of life or grievous injury to passengers.”
He said services were restored within an hour of the pantograph incident. “Moreover, services kept running between Dadar and Karjat/Kasara, and Vadala and Panvel/Andheri during the affected period. Also, no long-distance trains were cancelled or delayed because of the incident.”
Commuters responded to what they called the railways’ callousness angrily. Kalyan resident Anjali Joshi, who is generally home by 7.30pm but on Wednesday reached at 10.30pm, said, “After a long day at work, I need to travel 90 minutes by train to reach my destination, fetch my children from the crèche, help them with their studies, cook the evening meal and get things ready for the next day so that I am not late for work.
“During a crisis, unless I am informed on phone and on time, how am I supposed to act?”
INCIDENT ON TRACK
5.37pm | Pantograph of CST-Dombivli fast local gets entangled with overhead wire as the train crosses Sandhurst Road 5.41pm | Two pantographs of Asangaon-bound local get entangled with overhead wire on the same track as the train pulls out of CST. CR said on Thursday the Dombivli local had disturbed the alignment of the wire 5.45pm | All trains on CR’s main and harbour lines stop in the CST-Dadar and CSTWadala sections 6.53pm | The first two trains leave CST since the stoppage. One is for Panvel and the other for Dombivli, both slow locals 7.45pm | The rakes with entangled pantographs are cleared from the tracks 8.15pm | Services on fast track resume
OVERALL EFFECT 160 services cancelled
TAKING STOCK | CR has denied that pantograph design was responsible for the entanglements. It has said it will inspect overhead equipment to identify vulnerable spots
Text: Manthan K Mehta
EFFECTS OFF TRACK
The BMC is the nodal agency for coordinating disaster relief. One of the reasons why commuters faced chaos on Wednesday was because it received information about CR’s crisis half an hour late
6.12pm | BMC receives a call on its hotline (108) from a person, who informs it of CR’s breakdown 6.14pm | BMC calls up railway control room for confirmation. Told services would take 1-2 hours to be restored 6.18pm | Calls BEST to deploy additional buses at CST; 25 buses diverted to the spot 6.20pm | Informs Mantralaya control room 6.22pm | Calls up police control room, urging crowd control 6.28pm | Calls railways, learns that all six lines are shut 7.04pm | Calls railways, learns that slow services have resumed 7.05pm | BEST informs deployment of 25 additional buses 9.23pm | BMC calls railways. Informed that fast services resumed at 9.18 pm Times View: Railways’ disaster classification is absurd
In a city that has rail as its lifeline, lakhs of people getting stranded at stations during rush hour is a recipe for disaster. Therefore, it is absurd for the railways to say that only accidents can be termed disasters. Also, the state government cannot be absolved of negligence. Though a Wednesday-like crisis is not new to the city, it is only now that the government seems to have woken up to formulate transport and crowd management rules for railway emergencies. We hope the rules will be implemented, and not remain merely on paper.

BANDH BITES
KRISHNA APPEALS TO PM
External affairs minister SM Krishna urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explore the possibility of stopping further release of Cauvery water from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu and also seek an interim report from the team of experts currently visiting the Cauvery basins in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In a letter to the PM on Saturday, Krishna, who is out of the country said: “The situation in Karnataka is grim with not only farmers of the Cauvery irrigated areas being worried about the fast depleting levels in the dams, but also Bangalore citizens who fear shortage of drinking water.” While the monsoon in Karnataka is over, TN is better placed with the northeast monsoon setting...
Read more...

in, he added. PROTESTER DIES
Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt Ltd employee Gauranna died after a heart attack during a protest rally called in Mysore over the Cauvery issue. Gauranna, 45, who among 200 union members on a bike rally, was riding pillion when he collapsed from a parked bike near Metagalli police station around 11.15am. He was rushed to a private hospital first and then to another heart hospital where he was declared brought dead. IMMOLATION BID FOILED
Vishwanath, a 40-year-old farmer, attempted to immolate himself while participating in the bandh. A resident of Sadalahalli, Mandya, Vishwanath poured petrol over himself and tried to light fire. However, other protesters thwarted his attempt. TRAINS CANCELLED Afew trains were either cancelled, diverted or partially cancelled. Trains cancelled on Saturday mainly included those on the Bangalore-Mysore sector.
The Mysore-Bangalore passenger trains (Nos 56229, 56232. 56237 and 56238) were cancelled. A Jaipur bound train from Mysore was diverted in Bangalore. The Mysore-Jaipur Express (No 12975), that left Mysore on Saturday did not make its scheduled stop at Bangalore Cantonment. Passengers had to board the train at Bangalore City station at 6 pm.Train number 12726 Dharwad–Bangalore City Siddaganga Intercity Express will be partially cancelled between Dharwar and Hubli on Monday and will start from Hubli. COURTS SANS LAWYERS
Court proceedings were affected, thanks to the bandh on Saturday. Almost all cases got adjourned as many advocates decided to stay away from courts. In some instances, the parties themselves appeared in the court and sought adjournment.
NOWHERE TO GO: Passengers stranded at the Mysore railway station on Saturday

METRO FORCED TO STOP
Karnataka Rakshana Vedike protesters barged into the MG Road Metro station around 12.30pm when they saw the trains operating, and a few passengers stepping out of the station. Though the Metro ran its normal schedule between Byappanahalli and MG Road from 6am, there were very few passengers taking the trains, with business establishments, banks and offices remaining closed on MG Road and CMH Road. A group of 50 agitators passing by the MG Road station on motorbikes and a tipper stopped and barged into the station to stop the sale of tickets. This forced officials to evacuate passengers from the stations and close the gates. Within minutes, instructions were given to all six stations to close and withdraw operations till 6pm. The protesters, carrying aloft the Karnataka flag, patrolled all the stations to ensure...
Read more...

the trains were really stopped.

On three occasions last month, Vilas Lone did not leave a song incomplete. What’s more, he didn’t change the tune of the qawwalis he sang or end his bhajans abruptly—his usual strategies to avoid requests for an encore. Perhaps this had to do with the fact that his audience wasn’t a compartmentful of uninterested commuters or the satisfying knowledge that a generous payment was assured. But mostly, it was the result of pride—these were the few times in his life that the word ‘platform’ had taken on another meaning altogether.
For Lone and the group of seven musicians, who performed thrice at Ganpati mandals in Malad last month, the railway station was earlier their only stage. Unacquainted with one another
and scattered on different suburban railway platforms, these visually...
Read more...

challenged men and women would sing or play the instruments they were taught in music school. Until last year when a social worker called Hemlata Tiwari entered their lives.
Tiwari, whose mission was to rescue their talent from drowning in the cacophony of the railway station, had actually had her eureka moment three years earlier. “I was on my way to a show when I saw a couple of blind supplicants playing the harmonium and I asked myself whether this talent too did not deserve a proper stage,” she says. That’s how the idea of ‘Swaradhar’, her pilot project to bring together wandering minstrels who sang for a meagre living, came about.
Tiwari, who was clear that she didn’t want to do “something great financially” but just introduce the visually challenged musicians’ talent to the world, first approached Ananth, the man she had often spotted at Andheri Station playing Hindi and Marathi songs on his flute. After enlisting him and Irshad Shaikh, whom she also found playing the flute at Dadar Station, she heard from a friend about some visually challenged persons in Dombivli and Wangni, who too sold their talent for small change.
Among these were dholak player Chetan Patil, keyboard player Kishore Ghadling and singer Vilas Lone who all have the ‘Visharad’ degree—an extensive music course comprising seven levels. Tiwari was surprised to learn that most of them were educated up to HSC level and that Chetan Patil, in fact, worked with a private electrical firm till one day he was asked not to come to work. “I had no option but to sell cutlery at stations,” says Patil, who recalls being beaten up by a constable in the Srinagar Express he boarded once as a hawker. “Although I knew that what I was doing was illegal, it was the worst experience of my life,” adds Patil, who has sometimes played in the orchestras of local bars.
Initially, Tiwari’s idea was met by the blind musicians with reluctance, apprehension and appeals not to meddle in their business. “They had had some very bitter experiences with NGOs who promised a lot but did little so I had to create an emotional bond with them,” says Tiwari. Folk singer Vijaya Mestry, who is one of the orchestra members, however, did not need convincing. Mestry happened to overhear Tiwari discussing her plans for an orchestra with a friend at Wangni Station and decided to use that as a cue to change her fate as an unemployed, onand-off theatre singer back in her village.
The social worker then enlisted the help of seasoned musician Dattatray Mestry to train the eight musicians to perform in harmony. “Every time they get together, they are like school kids,” she laughs. Although the training helped, it meant certain adjustments. They could not take liberties and had to perform entire songs in what Chetan Patil calls a “cut-tocut” manner—in other words, from beginning to end without shortcuts.
The adjustment seems to have been worth it. At the Ganpati mandal in Malad, the eight earned not only an unprecedented Rs 11,000 but also a decent amount of curiosity from the audience. “We have another show coming up on World Blind Day, on October 15,” says Tiwari, who hopes the railway musicians’ new platform remains their permanent one.
MUSIC TO THEIR EARS: (L-R) Irshad Shaikh, Vilas Lone and Pushpa Lone formed a music band with the help of social worker Hemlata Tiwari (extreme right) and now give performances

New Delhi: The diesel price hike has come as a shocker for the railways, which is reeling from a financial crunch, but there is no immediate plan to increase freight tariffs. The Rs 5 diesel price hike is expected to put an additional burden of around Rs 1,200 crore every year on the cash-strapped transporter, headed by Trinamool Congress’ Mukul Roy.
“There is no move as yet to increase freight charges, though the increase in diesel price will hit us badly. As of now, we have no plan to shift the burden on freight operators,” a senior railway official said. The railways had effected a 20-25% hike in freight rates before the rail budget this year. The transporter consumes about 280 crore litres of diesel every year to run its fleet of around 4,500 diesel locomotives, hauling...
Read more...

freight and passenger trains.
The railways paid about Rs 13,209 crore in the current fiscal and Rs 11,741 crore during the last fiscal towards its fuel bill. The increase in fuel consumption every year is due to the addition of new services and more freight haulage.
“Since nearly six months have already passed in 2012-13, the addition to the fuel bill will be around Rs 100 crore per month this fiscal,” a senior railway official said.
The three oil PSUs — Indian Oil, HPCL and BPCL — supply fuel providing a subsidy of 30 paise per litre as the railways is a bulk consumer.
Agra residents stop a train to protest the diesel price hike

Kolkata: The arrival of Vishwakarma Puja has made Eastern Railway officials busy. They are now racking their brains over how to tackle the menace of kite strings, which often
get entangled with railway overhead wires and cause power to trip, thus resulting in unnecessary delay and congestion.
Also, the officials are now at their wit’s end after a test conducted on samples of these strings revealed that they are coated with iron fillings. “Earlier, kite strings would be coated with ground glass to enable them to cut through the strings of rival fliers. We were shocked to find that nowadays,
iron filings are being used to strengthen
...
Read more...

the strings. This kind of nylon string is reportedly imported from China. The overhead equipment (OHE) comprises two wires. The one on top is known as the catenary and comprises 19 strands. The lower one is the contact wire which is of solid brass. A tension of 1,200 kg is applied to the wires to prevent sagging. When high voltage electric current passes through the wires, they get heated. This also makes them soft. When a nylon wire coated with iron rubs against the catenary, the strands get severed,” explained Suchitto Kumar Das, divisional railway manager, Sealdah.
With a large number of encroachments along the tracks in the Sealdah division, the OHE is at greater risk than elsewhere. Kite enthusiasts move on to the tracks during kite-flying and the strings get intertwined with the electric wires overhead. Some times, the strings get intertwined with the pantographs of trains, resulting in damage.
“The strings, particularly when wet, act as conductors. One end remains in contact with the live wires while the other end hangs loose. Power trips when they come in contact with the roof of an EMU local or an OHE mast. If power trips in Titagarh, the entire stretch up to Durganagar, the Sealdah carshed and the Circular Railway gets affected. The exact location of the tripping has to be isolated before power can be restored to other parts. While isolation takes about 3-4 minutes, the entire restoration can take up to 10 minutes. By this time, 20 trains can get stuck midway. Some times, the string has to be removed from the wires physically before services can resume,” Das said.
Power tripping due to kite strings is common in places like Nungi and Baruipur. Awareness campaigns have been launched by the Sealdah division to keep kite fliers away from the tracks.
Intertwining of kite strings causes power tripping, thus disrupting services

The Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway Can Learn A Thing Or Two From Delhi Metro Which Has Found An Efficient Way To Deal With Close To 12 Lakh Commuters Every Day. They’re Issued Cards And Tokens To Use The System Seamlessly
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Imagine the Delhi Metro experience without the ubiquitous plastic – the blue Metro card that you swipe to get into a station and to get out. If that’s withdrawn and instead of using the card you now have to stand in a queue and buy tickets each time you catch a train, imagine the experience. What is currently viewed as efficient, if not pleasurable, breeze through, would then become a nightmare with long lines at ticket counters, jostling at entry points and perhaps fisticuffs, given that Delhi...
Read more...

is often on a short fuse.
Now do you know why the experience at the Gurgaon Expressway toll gate sucks? Because plastic just does not work there. There’s no respect for the tag lane through which passage should be easy if your car has the tag or if you have a plastic card to swipe. In fact, lane discipline has been so hopelessly bad here that even the expressway concessionaire, DSC, has stopped promoting sale of tags. The result: cars and trucks drive into each other across lanes, drivers fumble for change at the toll windows, there’s incessant honking, illtempered toll collectors – in short, a hoary experience.
DSC, the company that built an otherwise swanky highway and operates it, says it is helpless. That’s also been the consistent response of the police and government officials mandated to supervise the highway. The traffic is so heavy and indisciplined that there’s little we can do, they say. In other words, the Gurgaon toll gate is as broke as broke can be, but no one’s prepared to fix it. An exasperated court has finally suspended tolling and called upon all stake holders to find a solution.
What can the solution be? TOI senior editors, especially those who experience the toll torture every day, sat for hours to think of solutions. Editors and staffers met the stake holders – the NHAI, the concessionaire, traffic police, and users – to learn about the problem. The learning was thin: overall, there’s despair at the overall hopelessness of the situation. We too despaired. Until someone mentioned the Metro: how the Metro too is awfully crowded and yet how well it is managed. And the penny dropped. The solution was possibly staring us in the face – go electronic, stupid!
Here’s how. If the expressway guys were to take a leaf out of the Delhi Metro experience and go full blast in giving out tags, cards, stickers – and whatever else it takes to let cars cruise past toll gates – and make electronic the mandatory way of passage at the toll gate, the situation could change. Before you balk at the seeming impracticability of the solution, let us explain.
Currently, nearly 2 lakh vehicles use the toll road daily. Only a fraction of them have tags. Those who possess tags wonder why they had even bothered to get these because everyone else is in the tag lanes, holding up traffic. The incentive to buy tags is gone. It must be reincentivized. What’s a better way than making them mandatory.
To make tags mandatory they have to be easily accessible. Like the Metro does, tags and touch cards should be sold at multiple places: petrol pumps, malls, kiosks, even kirana shops. That way, even casual users of the expressway will be encouraged to get tags and cards, knowing full well that it will smoothen the journey. But what happens to really infrequent users? Well, if you’re coming from Jaipur, for example, there should be several clearly marked places where touch cards are sold, for various denominations, for different periods, as well as for a single journey. So, with the electronic pass, you breeze past the toll gate.
There is always the argument that ill-behaved or ignorant drivers will still head for the toll gate without any electronic pass – tag, swipe card, or barcoded paper. They should be allowed to pass through and then be escorted by firm marshals (with police backing) to the nearest kiosk selling plastic or paper cards, made to wait for five or ten minutes and then told to pay up. The simple point is that the boor or the dumb just can’t be allowed to hold up traffic between Delhi and its buzziest suburb or scupper a world-class facility.
An electronic option that’s revolutionized everything from inventory management to retail shopping is the bar-coded slip. Why can’t booklets with bar codes of different denominations be sold across the stretch of neighbourhoods along the e-way? All drivers have to do is either hand in the slip of paper containing the bar code or better still hold it against a bar code scanner for the toll gate to open. No notes, no coins, no chik-chik.
Over time, the number of gate crashers will come down. Once the message goes down that there’s no purchase in muscling in and that life becomes palpably easier with plastic, there will be more and more users of tags and ecards. The switchover could be tough. To make it easier, there should be a grace period of a few weeks during which an intensive awareness/education drive is rolled out to ensure the success of tags. Leaflets and booklets should be given out, TV and radio ads taken, etc.
And the might of the authority must step in. The government must make unauthorized entry into the tag lanes illegal, akin to rash driving and impose penalty. The police has to play a special role in enforcing this. Again, over time, the job will become easier as all drivers understand that there’s only one way to play this game – by the rules. There are enough rules in the statutes to give the police powers to impose Rs 500 or even a Rs 1,000 fine. We didn’t need an act of Parliament to declare sun-glare films illegal. So, there’s no reason why it can’t be done at the toll gate.
Nearly 70% of the traffic currently using the toll gate either originates or ends up in Gurgaon, the remaining heading to Haryana industrial hubs further down or even Rajasthan and beyond. So for these 70%, tags or electronic payment systems are far more beneficial since they are the bulk users. An overwhelming majority of the users, in other words, will plump for an efficient electronic system of passage through the toll gate.
And the rest will fall in line, while the obstinate ones must suffer and pay.
OPEN GATE POLICY: It’s a breeze driving past the toll after the high court order

Vadodara: Rail traffic on Mumbai route was disrupted on Friday morning after an overhead wire broke down near Nabipur railway station near Bharuch. Seven trains got delayed by hours due to the incident at around 4.35 am.
The incident occurred as one of the two pantographs mounted on the engine of Pune-Ahmedabad Duronto Express broke down. “Earlier, both the lines were suspended, but the up line was restored soon. The down line was restored at around 9.55 am after which the rail traffic was normalized,” senior divisional commercial manager of Vadodara railway division Uday Shankar Jha said.
Seven trains, including train number (12298) Pune-Ahmedabad Duronto Express got delayed. While Duronto got delayed by nearly six hours, train number (16508) Bangalore-Jodhpur Express was running five...
Read more...

hours late. Train number (18405) Puri-Ahmedabad Express was late by 4.30 hours.
Train number (11088) Pune-Veraval Express was running 4.30 hours late. Train number (09109) Valsad-Ahmedabad Express was three hours late. Train number (19451) - Mumbai-Gandhidham Express was also running four hours late. Train number (16338) Ernakulam-Hapa Express was running three hours late. TNN

mumbai: The Ahmedabad-Mumbai super-fast AC double-decker train will make its inaugural run from Gujarat to Mumbai Central on September 19.
According to sources, it will depart from Ahmedabad at 6am to arrive at Mumbai Central by 1pm. On its return trip it will pull out of Mumbai Central at 2.20pm and reach Ahmedabad at 9.30pm.
While Shatabdi Express takes 6 hours and 45 minutes to cover the same distance, Karnavati Express (superfast train) takes7 hours and 45 minutes to traverse the 493-km stretch. The doubledecker AC train, which will run six days a week, will reach Ahmedabad in 7 hours.
Western Railway (WR) wanted to introduce the service by June but...
Read more...

the plan fell through. The train will halt at Borivli, Vapi, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara and Anand.
“Each coach can accommodate 120 passengers. Of these 70 will be on the lower level,” said a WR official.
“The double-decker coach will ferry 70% more passengers than Shatabdi. It will have a mini-pantry,” he added. A single ticket on the super-fast train may cost Rs 471 as compared to Shatabdi Express, which is priced at Rs 695.
On Fast Track
• Halts: Borivli, Vapi, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara & Anand
• Capacity: 120 commuters per coach (70 on lower level)
• Likely fare: Rs 471
•Travel time: 7 hours
DOUBLE-DECKER TREAT: The train will reach its destination in 7 hours

Mumbai: In a victory for residents of a lane in Kurla, they will no longer have to deal with illegally parked trucks, generator vans and commercial vehicles.
Following a petition filed in the high court, the collector of Mumbai used a special law under the Criminal Procedure Code to direct the traffic police to remove the illegally parked vehicles.
“It has been pointed out that trucks, scrap tempos, generator vans and vehiclescoming for servicing to a service centre are being illegally parked on the road from Priyadarshini Circle to Bunter Bhavan Road, causing obstruction to traffic,” said the collector, adding: “They also pose a health risk and cause pollution.”
Relying on...
Read more...

Section 133 of the CrPC,thecollector hasordered removal of the illegally parked vehicles in three days. “This is a little known rule, which gives the collector wide-ranging powers to remove public nuisance—be it illegally parked vehicles, goods stored in an unauthorized manner or hawkers who cause obstruction,” said advocate Pradeep Havnur, counsel for petitioner Leela Shetty, a trustee of Bunts Sangh.
On Thursday, a division bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and R Dhanuka was informed of the collector’s orders. The petitioners also told the court that once the vehicles were removed, they had permission to undertake beautification of the road.

Mumbai: After waiting for nearly three yearsfor worktostarton thesecond Metro route—Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd—the MMRDA has warned the developer, Reliance Infrastructure, that it would initiate action if the latter failed to start work at the earliest.
Citizens living in the western suburbs have already opposed the plan to have an elevated routefor MetroII and want it to be made underground.
Additional metropolitan commissioner SVR Srinivas, in a letter on September 6, said the administration “might be constrained to initiate action in keeping with the agreement without prejudice to the MMRDA’s right to claim damages for delay in commencement of the work”.
The MMRDA sent the letter to Reliance without reportedly addressing any of thecompany’sconcerns.These...
Read more...

include permission to build car depots at Mankhurd and Charkop only on stilt,whichis a costly affair; no permission towashtrains atdepots, making the project unfeasible for the developer; no civil aviation nod for a stretch of the elevated route near the Juhu airport; hurdles in the form of high-voltage electric lines and no rights to commercially exploit the route with 4 FSI, making the project a non-starter financially.
Many suspect that the letter is the beginning of the process to scrap the second Metro line. The MMRDA claimed that it had already handed over 20 km without impediments to RInfra, including continuous stretches of 2-5 km for construction.
A worried RInfra had written to the chief minister pointing out that non-fulfilment of the promises made under the concession agreement was not only delaying the project but also making it unviable for the company.
Asked about the MMRDA’s letter, a spokesperson for RInfra said: “Commencement of work requires appropriate redress of the issues involved.” MMRDA to submit white paper on projects in a month Mumbai:The state government has directed the MMRDA to bring out a white paper involving all infrastructure projects by it. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavansaid on Friday that he had directed the agency to submit the report within a month.
Observers say the move, which comes in the wake of September 4mishap at a Metro I site, has a lot of political significance. They say Chavan, who heads the MMRDA, has turned the tables on the NCP by promptly ordering submission of the white paper.
The NCP has been on the backfoot over allegations of scams involving departments controlled by it. For instance, the party-controlled irrigation department, which has come under the scanner over multiple scam allegations, is yet to bring out its white paper. Chavan had initiated the demand for a white paper.
Later, NCP ministers targeted Chavan over the Metro mishap during a cabinet meeting. Questioning delays and cost escalation in MMRDA projects, home minister RR Patil raised the demand for a white paper.
On Thursday, however, the NCP said the party had not asked for a white paper of any department. Party spokesperson Nawab Malik said whatever Patil said was his opinion. Meanwhile, Chavan said he was personally against private parties retaining majority stake in infrastructure projects.—Sandeep Ashar

Gurgaon: In a move that promises better connectivity in the city soon, the first train set of the Rapid Metro Rail that had arrived in the city on Tuesday from China was placed on the tracks on Thursday. The trial runs are all set to begin in a fortnight. The authorities claimed that the operations would begin in March as scheduled. However the Shankar Chowk station, one among the six on the network, would be initially closed as the work is lagging behind here.
The good news is that the Delhi Metro commuters will not have to purchase a separate token to travel by the Rapid Metro. They can use the same token or smart card to do so and the fare, even though yet to be finalized, is likely to be a flat rate for all the...
Read more...

six stations.
“The first train has already arrived and the remaining four will arrive by mid-December. We will begin the trial runs on October 2 and for that we have already started integrating all the components and laying of tracks. We are sure that we will commence our commercial operations as scheduled in March next year, but the only station that will not become operational immediately will be the one at Shankar Chowk, just next to the national highway, as we got that land only a few months ago,” said Sanjiv Rai, managing director, Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon.
He added, “the existing Metro users will not face any sort of problem as we along with DMRC have put in place a clearing house system whereby the revenue of the networks will get segregated automatically. The commuters do not have to purchase a separate ticket to use our network.”
The authorities claim that the network will be used by at least one lakh commuters in the first year itself. The construction of the second phase of the project will be begin in March, in which the network will be extended towards Sectors 55-56 and Udyog Vihar.
BETTER CONNECTIVITY: The new Chinese train has been set on the track