No more crowding at foot over bridges

Pune Railway Station to get another FOB by Central Railway at police's request

No more crowding at foot over bridges

Pune Railway Station to get another FOB by Central Railway at police's request

Commuters traveling to and fro from Pune Railway Station can now heave a sigh of relief. They won't have to maneuver their way through heavy rush on foot over bridge (FOB) that they encounter during rush hours. In order to tackle this problem, the Central Railway (CR) will construct another FOB at the station, which will come up just parallel to the existing one.

Go easy now: With a new FOB in the pipeline, commuter rush on the
existing overbridges will decrease, reducing security threats.
Pic/Jignesh Mistry

Although Pune station has currently two FOBs, the commuters used only one of the two FOBs for entering and exiting the station as the other one is at the fag end of the platform. The Government Railway Police (GRP) and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) have a tough time managing the rush at the FOB in the evenings and claim that if crowd is not regulated, then the situation can become dangerous.

Senior Police Inspector, Mahendra Rokde, said, "The GRP had taken been writing to the concerned officials of the Divisional Railway Manager for taking immediate remedial measures before a serious mishap or stampede takes place."

A senior RPF official said, "The up Azad-Hind Express, the Jhelum Express and the Nagercoil-Mumbai Express that arrive at the station between 3 to 5 pm leads to several hundred people alighting from the train the same time. They only use the first FOB that is closer to the main entrance. The other FOB that is at the fag end of the platform is barely used by commuters. This leads to a large amount of people converging at a time at the FOB, which is very dangerous for passenger security. We then have to deploy our personnel for dispersing the crowds systematically."

Public Relations Officer of the Central Railway, Suhas Lohokare, said that the railways has now taken due cognisance of the issue and will now initiate tendering processes and other works for commencing construction of the third FOB. "The new FOB will come up exactly parallel to the existing one. Work will begin in next 6 months," he said.

Commuters speak
When MiD-DAY visited the spot, it was seen that one of the staircases leading to the FOB from platform number two was also closed for some repair work. Commuters too expressed inconvenience because of the heavy crowds. "Although they have maintained the station quite well, crowd dispersal needs to be seriously looked at." expressed 24-year-old Joe Thomas (24), Marine engineer.

Parth Srivastava, 22, an IT professional also had the same opinion. "The rush during the evenings is horrible. And if one has some baggage, maneuvering your way through the crowd becomes even tougher. I hope the CR does something about it soon."