Railway Board to check rain readiness of Mumbai network

In a new development, the Railway Ministry will dispatch a Railway Board team to monitor the monsoon preparedness of Mumbai's lifeline, the suburban train services, an official said here on Wednesday.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) city president Ashish Shelar on Wednesday met Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and apprised him of the series of disruptions on Western Railway, Central Railway and Harbour Line in the past few days which have made life and commute miserable for over eight million daily commuters.

"The disruption in Mumbai suburban (services) yesterday has been taken up very seriously," Shelar tweeted shortly after his meeting with Prabhu where he informed him of the frequent breakdowns in the suburban networks which hit city commuters hard.

He said besides sending a Railway Board team to Mumbai, Prabhu has ordered a time-bound enquiry into the disruptions in suburban train services in the past two days.

The minister emphasised that "ensuring safe commute for the people is our priority" and assured that not only would the reasons behind the disruptions be explored, but they would focus on remedial measures and act swiftly.

Pulling up the WR and CR authorities, Prabhu has directed the general managers of the two railways serving Mumbai suburban to conduct a time-bound enquiry, come up with the causes and report immediately.

Last year, Prabhu had uploaded the Twitter handles of all top officials of all railway zones in the country for public information and asked people to directly complain to them of any problems besides marking copies to him (@RainMinIndia) for proper monitoring at the highest level.

Mumbai's commuters had a harrowing time in the past two days with consecutive disruptions on the WR on Monday due to theft of batteries and on CR due to water-logging in the inaugural monsoon rains.

Lakhs of people could not reach their places of work or offices in south Mumbai, students could not make it to their colleges or schools across the city, daily wage earners lost their day's income while supplies of goods and services which are transported by suburban trains were also disrupted.

--IANS

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