Rail panel on passenger deaths lacks experienced members:

Railway activists from Mumbai today alleged that the Central Railway committee recently formed to look into passenger deaths on suburban trains does not have any experienced officers and activists.
The activists criticised CR officials for not taking transport experts, who have knowledge about ground realities of suburban operations, into the committee which was formed on December 1, in wake of the death of a 21-year-old man.
On November 28, Bhavesh Nakhate, a Dombivili resident, died after falling from an overcrowded train in neighbouring Thane district.
Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee (ZRUCC) member Subhash Gupta said officers who formed the committee forgot that suburban railway does not operate only upto Mumbai-Thane and Kalyan.

"But it (the railways) also reaches upto Karjat, Kasara and Khopoli and representatives of these destinations have been summarily ignored," he alleged.
A CR official said the committee comprises nine members, including four MPs - Kirit Somaiya, Rajan Vichare, Poonam Mahajan and Arvind Sawant.

Other members of the committee are S K Sood, (General Manager of Central Railway), Ketan Goradia (Commuters Association), L R Nagwani (NGO), Ajoy Mehta, (BMC Commissioner) and E Ravindran (Kalyan Dombivili Municipal Commissioner).
It would submit its report (on passenger deaths) by December 31, he said.
A member of Divisional Railway Users Consultative Committee (DRUCC), who did not wish to be named, said it seems that this committee has been formed to please the parliamentarians who never travel by local trains.

"All I can say is that these nine members never travel by local trains. So how can they realise and pinpoint the ailing issues of suburban railways," he said.
Echoing similar views, Railway activist and member of DRUCC of Western Railway, Rajiv Singal said, "The way members have been inducted into the committee, I don't see that its recommendations would fetch some impact."
Another activist Sameer Jhaveri said railway activists who could have brought some "metamorphosis" change, have not been included in the committee.
A senior railway official, while declining to comment on the issue, said the decision to appoint the committee has been taken at the Railway Board-level.