More women passengers killed on CR than WR
Data from the Government Railway Police (GRP) has revealed that more women passengers are killed on Central Railway than Western Railway.
While 520 women commuters lost their lives in the last two years on the Central line, the Western Railway line witnessed 290 deaths.
In contrast to the previous years’ records, 13 women passengers on CR and 33 women on WR have lost lives till now in the current year.
All these deaths have been attributed to — crossing the tracks, falling from running trains, slipping into the gap between trains and platforms, hitting poles and other mishaps.
“As a measure to curb the accidents, we have picked up 12 accident-prone stations to build additional foot overbridges (FOBs), fencing between the platforms so that commuters are forced to use these FOBs and constructing boundary walls. This will certainly minimise the number of deaths,” said a senior official from Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) on the condition of anonymity. Despite the damning statistics, the number of accidental deaths on railway tracks in Mumbai has seen a marginal drop. GRP data showed that 2010 registered 309 deaths a month on average.
The numbers dropped to 288 in 2011 and 287 in 2012. In addition to this, the data for the first quarter of the current calendar year revealed that the number accidental deaths per month have gone down to 275. A total of 3,458 deaths in 2011 and 3,541 deaths in 2012 were reported.
Sameer Jhaveri, a railway activist, said, “Western Railway has put fences at all main stations that so commuters don’t have any other option but to use the FOBs. In this activity, the CR is lagging behind.” Mr Jhaveri added that many among those killed, could have been saved had they received immediate medical
attention at nearby hospitals.
The stations — Dadar, Kandivali, Borivali, Bhayandar, Vasai Road, Nalasopara on WR and Dadar, Kurla, Kanjurmarg, Thane, Thakurli, Kalyan on CR — have become deathtraps for commuters, said a railway official.
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