Mumbai’s suburban rail network ferries millions every day, but the stations and the infrastructure are in a pathetic state. The Elphinstone Road station stampede was a tragedy waiting to happen.
TWENTY years ago, the Elphinstone Road station in Parel in Mumbai was an innocuous little station that served mainly local residents. Such was its unimportance that fast trains did not stop there. Located in Mumbai’s mill district, it had witnessed rush hours once but as the mills rapidly shut down, the number of people using the station dwindled. In the mid 1990s, when the mills’ land began developing into massive commercial and residential complexes, the little station saw a resurgence in commuters and has become an extremely busy one in recent years. But, in spite of the increase in traffic, nothing was done to improve the infrastructure.
Until a stampede struck. On September 29, because of a sudden downpour, hundreds of commuters took shelter under whatever covering was available at the station. One of these was the bridge. Reportedly, a flower hawker shouted at someone, saying “phool gir gaya” (the flowers have fallen). Some people heard it as “pool gir gaya” (“pool” in Hindi means bridge). Fearing that the bridge was collapsing, people began surging towards the exit, triggering a stampede which killed 23 people, including an 11-year-old boy.
Sadly, it took a carnage to jolt the Central and State administrations into looking at the pathetic state of Mumbai’s local stations. Mumbai’s suburban railway is the city’s lifeline. Eighty lakh people use 3,500 services on four arterial lines every day. The load on the local trains is high and observers say that their capacity has reached a saturation point.What happened at the Elphinstone Road station is symptomatic of the larger malaise afflicting Mumbai’s suburban railway system.
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