RPF men will monitor crossing at Whitefield
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Bangalore: A day after a medico and techie were run over by trains on the Whitefield track, railway police on Thursday decided to deploy Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel to monitor the dangerous crossing.
The six police officials will help pedestrians in crossing the six tracks, which have killed more than 17 people last year.
“These RPF personnel will stop people from crossing the tracks whenever a train passes,” railway police told TOI. However, the number will be reduced to four between 10pm and 6am. The RPF men will continue with this till a...
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skywalk is built there

Don’t put your life on the line
Death On Railway Lines Fails To Trigger Fear In Passengers’ Mind | At KR Puram Station, People Take A Short Cut, Cross Tracks Ignoring Risks
Aparajita Ray | TNN
It’s 12:51pm at Krishnarajapuram railway station in East Bangalore. The Bangalore-Marikuppam passenger and Chennai-Bangalore Brindavan express chug on to platform numbers 3 and 2 almost at the same time. Nearly 50 passengers rush to the other side of the tracks to board the Marikuppam passenger from the track side just to grab a seat. A minute later at 12:52pm, when Brindavan express chugs on to platform number 2, passengers hop on to the tracks, get on to platform number 1 and...
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get out of the station.
TOI witnesses senior citizens, women and men with children and luggage in tow cross the deadly railway tracks. Even a day after two persons were crushed by trains at the next station at Whitefield, passengers don’t seem to have learnt about the dangers of crossing the tracks. “It saves time to cross the tracks than to struggle to climb up and down the stairs of the railway overbridge. Moreover, the access to the second and third platform from platform number one is such that it’s time-saving,” said A Sukumaran, resident of Kaggadaspura who took his son along with him to cross the tracks.
Saving time could cost you your life. When TOI asked Vasudevan R if he knew the dangers of crossing the tracks and that too with his old parents, he just smiled and walked away. His mother was walking with the help of a crutch on one side and by holding his hands by the other side.
Passengers have their own excuses. Like Fatima Begum. “The ticket counter at Vijinapura side is on platform one but this platform doesn’t have a connectivity to the bridge. You have to get out of the station and climb the ROB to go to the other platforms. Instead it is easy to cross just two tracks and reach there,” she said, ignoring the dangers of crossing the tracks.
The railway staff, including women signal staff, perhaps don’t realize that they are setting a bad example by crossing the tracks to save time. Platform number 4 faces the outer ring road which is the gateway to the city’s IT hubs and the other side is Vijinapura.
PASSENGERS DON’T USE FACILITIES
“We have a foot overbridge (FOB) in KR Puram but people don’t use it. But in stations where we don’t have such overbridges, they blame us for having to cross the tracks. We can force passengers to use FOBs but that cannot happen on a regular basis; we don’t have enough staff to monitor this,” said AK Agarwal, divisional railway manager, Bangalore division of South Western Railway.
He said a Rs 14-crore project is on the anvil. Under this, the KR Puram-Kolar line will be upgraded, there’ll be a second ROB at the other end of the station, platform numbers 2 and 3 will be widened and the first platform will be restructured to accommodate 25 coaches which are now enough for a 10-coach rake. The project is yet to be sanctioned by the railway board.
ON THE TRACK HOW MANY TRAINS The number of trains passing by KR Puram railway station: 42 to 55 on a daily basis (many trains are weekly/ triweekly)
DAILY PASSENGER TRAFFIC Number of passengers (unreserved) daily: 8,631
Number of passengers (reserved) daily: 1,154
Number of tickets sold (unreserved) daily: 6,132 (includes people who bought platform tickets)
Number of tickets sold (reserved) daily: 700
LENGTH OF PLATFORMS
• Platform 1 accommodates 10-coach train and is not been put to use for passenger train services for long; to be elongated to accommodate 25-coach train
• Platforms 2 and 3 being used for train services most of the time and can accommodate 18-coach rake; proposed to be elongated to accommodate 25-coach tra

To ensure faster dispersal of commuters from Dadar station, Central Railway has decided to provide the junction an alternative entry-exit point at Tilak Bridge.
The bridge, railway officials said, will be linked via a new walkway to an existing 12m-wide foot over-bridge at Dadar station that provides access to all platforms on Western Railway as well as Central Railway. While the plan’s essentials have been settled on, the specifics are being considered.
Under an option that is estimated to cost Rs 4-5 crore, a footbridge will connect Tilak Bridge directly to the 12mwide FOB. Under the second option, which is likely to cost Rs 20 crore, an elevated deck will be built adjacent to Tilak Bridge to allow entry of vehicles and to serve as a...
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boarding point; this deck will then be linked to the station.
The decision to create a new entry-exit point was precipitated by the overcrowding at other approaches to the station at rush hours. Compounding the problem is the fact that the roads leading to the station from the east and the west Dadar are narrow and populated by hawkers.
By an estimate, about 15 lakh commuters use Dadar station every day. Apart from serving as a major junction, it is an important crossroads where people switch from WR to CR and vice-versa.
“The rush during peak hours is so massive that the existing entry-exit points get clogged, thus preventing smoother dispersal of commuters,” an official said. “An alternative arrangement through Tilak Bridge will help alleviate the problem.”
The bridge work will be funded under the Trespassing Control Project that was proposed by Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC). For the project, MRVC signed up students of JJ School of Arts and Architecture to identify the reasons for track trespassing and to suggest methods to curb it.
According to the study, track-crossing occurs at Dadar station because of the excessive height of FOBs that deters commuters from using them. Other shortfalls at the station include inadequate FOBs and lack of facilities for senior citizens and physically challenged.
Rajiv Mishra, principalin-charge of JJ School of Arts and Architecture, said, “Apart from the FOB, we recommended installation of elevators and escalators at crucial places at the station.”
The elevators and escalators are covered in the second option that is under consideration and estimated to cost Rs 20 crore. “But since cost is a major factor, we may opt for just the foot over-bridge,” a senior official said. “The other facilities can come up as and when funds are made available.”
But experts warned that merely linking Tilak Bridge with an FOB might also create hurdles for the smooth flow of vehicular traffic. To prevent such an undesirable concomitant, they suggested, a deck must be built as a docking area for cars.
Mishra assured that the project design will be aesthetic and will meet international standards.
WHEELS OF CHANGE
Dadar railway station is an important crossroads that caters to both Central Railway and Western Railway. Lakhs of commuters use it every day to change routes. It also serves as a junction for long-distance trains on WR as well as C By

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.”
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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...
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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
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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