Give us more space: Lady commuters

After repeated requests to raise the number of seats for women, the railway u00a0authorities have taken no notice, say discontented female passengers

Female commuters on the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) are clamouring for more breathing space on their daily commute.

But the railway officials aren't very sympathetic to their demand for more ladies' seats, they say.

While the number of female commuters have increased by around 10 times over the past two decades, the number of seats and coaches reserved for female commuters have remained more or less the same on the WR.


The female commuters have gone up by around 10 times over the past two decades

In the CR they have added 10 more seats for female passengers in the 12-car rake (see box). Women complain that second-class compartments are over-crowded and the first class is as bad.

Shrutika Jadhav, a sales coordinator, says that most people spend four hours on the daily commute to and from office. "Despite paying first class fare, many female passengers don't get their money's worth.

As the strength of women commuters has increased, the railways need to add more first class compartments."

Not only Jadhav, thousands of female passengers have the same grouse. Ujjawala Shinde travels frequently on the WR.
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"I have personally complained to the railway about the space crunch but none of the officials seem interested," she said.
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She added that the railways have received similar suggestions from a lot of passengers but nothing has been done so far.

The first class women's seats in the WR continue to be 50 in 9-car, 12-car as well as in 15-car rakes.

Although the new Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) rakes were modified after passenger complaints, the female coaches were left unaltered.

The Managing Director of MRVC PC Sehgal said it is not his responsibility, "My duty is only to supply rakes to the railways. I do not decide about the addition or deletion of coaches."

Sheetal Menon who travels between Dombivli and CST on the CR said, "The first class compartment is so small, hardly 16 ladies can sit. First class passengers pay three times the fare of second class, but see no benefits."
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Menon added, "It's a request from all female passengers to the railway ministry to increase coaches for females. We hope this will be taken into consideration as the Railway Minister is a woman too."

However, the Chief PRO of CR S Mudgerikar implied he had done the needful.
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"After observing an increase in the number of female passengers, we introduced eight ladies' special trains. We have also earmarked three extra coaches exclusively for ladies in seven CR trains."

Mudgerikar's WR counterpart, Sharat Chandrayan, also ruled out any possibility of increasing seats for women.
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"We are working out a plausible solution but the chances of increasing ladies' special locals during peak hours are slim. We are running six ladies' special trains already."