Ashamed to see commuters travelling like cattle in Mumbai local trains: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said it was ashamed to see commuters forced to travel like cattle in the local trains the lifeline of the Mumbai regionHearing a Public Interest Litigation PIL on rising number of deaths of commuters due to falling from overcrowded trains or in other accidents on the tracks the high court said this very very serious issue must be dealt withA division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar said it will hold the top officials of both the Central and Western Railways accountable as the situation in Mumbai is patheticThe PIL was filed by Yatin JadhavVery very serious issue has been raised in the PIL and therefore you railway authorities have to address it You cant say we cant do this or cant do that due to the large number of people in the city You carry people like cattle We feel ashamed at the manner in which commuters are made to commute the court saidThe bench directed the general managers GM of the Western and Central Railways to look into the entire issue and file affidavits in responseThe affidavits shall be personally vetted by the GMs and indicate the measures which are available and are in force to check such mishaps said the courtIt would hear the PIL next after eight weeks the HC saidAs per the petition 2590 commuters lost their lives on the tracks in 2023 which was seven deaths every day As many as 2441 persons were injured during the same periodWhile 1650 people were killed in accidents on the Central Railway route 940 died on the Western RailwayAdvocate Suresh Kumar appearing for the Western Railway said it was taking measures such as putting up barricades between tracks and construction of two or three footoverbridges at every station The WR has implemented HC directions passed in an earlier PIL on the issue he addedYou should not depend only on orders for saving peoples lives We agree you have followed those directions But have you been able to check these deaths Question is whether it measures has yielded results Have you been able to reduce or stop deaths asked the benchKumar pointed out that the WR was running services at the highest possible frequency with trains leaving every 23 minutes during peak hoursThe high court said it was not suggesting that the Railways increase the number of trains or their capacity but a solution has to be foundThis time we will make the highestlevel officers accountable The situation in Mumbai is pathetic the bench saidYou Railways cant feel happy that you have been ferrying 35 lakh people daily You cant say considering the number of people in Mumbai you are doing a good job You cant even take a refuge saying there are too many people You have to change your mindset Your officers need not be satisfied by commuting such a large number of commuters it addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever