The Indian Railways' move to skip a few halts to improve the speed and efficiency of trains and create corridors for maintenance and other trains is likely to snowball into a major controversy with several MPs and activists opposing the removal of halts and converting regular passenger trains into express ones.

Railway officials said the new Zero-Based Timetable (ZBTT), likely to come into force from December 1, has nationally removed more than 6,000 unnecessary halts of regular trains in a scientific manner, creating more elbow room to speed up passenger trains. The railways worked out the timetable with IIT-Bombay's help. As per the criteria, a halt should result in a minimum of 50 people embarking and disembarking in a day.