Mumbai: Central Railway wants commuters to clean up poop!

DRM Ravinder Goyal extreme right softened his stand when the passenger associations were furious and added that they wanted their cooperation in the lsquoSwachh Bharatrsquo driveThe Central Railway CR is troubled by frequent protests and rail rokos by passengers who are troubled by the constant delays and cancellations To discuss this for the first time CR and passenger associations met at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus CST on December 10 But passengers were furious as they were asked to help clean the tracks of faeces and garbage insteadDRM goes off trackSources said that during the meeting Divisional Railway Manager Ravinder Goyal who heads the Mumbai division for CR said ldquoThe passenger committees should help our people in cleaning the tracks which are covered in faeces and garbage Our workers are forced to clean them as well as do their workrdquoAlso Read Thane Decision of halting fast trains at Diva led to Titwala troubleThis infuriated the passenger associations who got back saying they were there to talk about the problems faced by lakhs of daily commuters on the ThaneKarjatKasara line The commuter associations wanted to meet the DRM to discuss the recent rail roko at Titwala apart from the ones earlier this yearlsquoClean faeces and garbagersquoldquoThe DRM asked us to help their men clean garbage and faeces from tracks which are dumped by vendors and hutment dwellers So we got angryrdquo said Lata Argade Vice President Upnagriya Railway Pravasi MahasanghThis is when sources said that Goyal softened his stand and added that they wanted the passenger associationrsquos cooperation in the Swachh Bharat drive The officials claim that punctuality suffers especially due to garbage around the trackslsquoOur job is running trainsrsquoldquoThe CR officials are saying that running trains is their job and not cleaning They should ask local corporators and civic bodies to take action We are rail activists who are bringing forth problems of commutersrdquo said Nandkumar Deshmukh president Thane Railway Pravasi SanghldquoWe are telling people not to throw garbage on tracksrdquo said Vishwanath Datrak president Federation of Rail Passengersrsquo AssociationThe CR wants passengersrsquo associations to also talk to the local civic bodies and state government to close Level Crossing gates especially for three hours in the morning and evening peak hours at Titwala Kalwa and Diva so that they can improve punctuality At present trains run late by at least 10 minutes due to these LC gates which are opened any where from 12 to 36 timesRead Story Badlapur Agitation Irked by train delays Cause more delaysIf these LC gates are shut then more train services can be added to improve the commute of the 42 lakh daily passengersOfficial speakRavinder Goyal DRM Mumbai said ldquoWe requested associationsrsquo cooperation in preventing trespassing educating the public about not using the tracks to throw garbage and muck helping us educate the public not to break the walls made for their safety and reducing the traffic on gates etc as all these lead to delay in trains These issues can also make our job more difficult in maintenance matters and have a negative effect on punctuality I think anyone who represents commuters has a duty to look at these and other mattersrdquo