Fixing infrastructure gaps

The stampede at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road suburban station foot over-bridge that claimed 23 lives would never have happened if the interest of passengers had been a key priority for the Railways. The risk of such a tragedy occurring, particularly on the 45-year-old foot over-bridge, was well known to both the Railways as well as commuters. To be fair, the Railways had recognised, albeit belatedly, that it needed to address the inadequacy of the infrastructure. Construction of a new bridge had been cleared by former railway minister Suresh Prabhu about two years ago, but ironically tenders for its construction were floated only on the day of the tragedy. The blame for the tragedy must squarely lie with the Railways bureaucracy. The tragedy has served as a wake-up call for the Railways and the new railway minister Piyush Goyal has acted with urgency to announce a host of new infrastructure projects that will make passenger movement at Mumbai’s suburban stations easier. The announcements including 92 escalators and several foot over-bridges are welcome and the minister should ensure that these projects are not delayed or the quality of work compromised. But a city like Mumbai where over 7.5 million passengers use the suburban services everyday, needs much more than these escalators and overbridges. It needs a modern mass rapid transit system.

It also needs a modern approach to traffic management. Adequate entry and exit points to facilitate crowd movement as well as crowd management need to be a priority. The Delhi Metro does a reasonably good job with marshals and Central Industrial Security Force guards on the platforms and concourse and by restricting access to the station if required. The Delhi Metro has the advantage of being a modern infrastructure unlike the Mumbai suburban service which dates back to the colonial era. The long-term solution to crowding is to augment facilities at regular intervals and build in redundancy into all new projects to handle growth. For urban and suburban mass transit projects, it is also necessary to have increased and ongoing coordination between different agencies to plan and augment infrastructure. For instance, the Mumbai suburban service cannot be just a Railway project —the municipal corporations and town planners need to be closely associated with it to develop the areas around the stations and prevent choking by people and road transport. Above all, there has to be a razor-sharp focus on execution.

It will not be out of place to suggest that citizens’ participation is also required to keep transit systems tragedy-free. And that should not be limited to just demanding improved amenities such as escalators and lifts to enable faster movement from one platform to another in train stations and make stations and trains more accessible for the differently-abled. Citizens should also be aware that their behaviour can avert or trigger a tragedy.

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