While there has been an increasing demand for better connectivity between Pune and Lonavala, the actual number of trains run between the two cities witnessed a decline over the past few years. Data obtained under Right to Information (RTI) has revealed that the Central Railway operated at least 1,500 fewer local trains between the two cities in 2018 as compared to 2012. There were a total of 1114 fewer train-runs from Pune to Lonavala, and 383 fewer runs in the opposite direction. The RTI data shows that in 2012, the Central Railway (CR) operated a total of 6,954 trains on Pune-Lonavala route, while just 5,840 trains ran on the route in 2018. On Lonavala-Pune route, the number of trains dropped from 6,588 in 2012 to 6,205 in 2018, it reveals. An average of 3.4 to 3.5 crore passengers commute between the two cities every year, according to official data. Currently, the CR runs a total of 16 trains on Pune-Lonavala route, 17 on Lonavala-Pune route, and one between Shivajinagar and Talegaon each day. The CR officials, when approached on the issue, blamed the drop in train services on cancellations due to operation of “maintenance blocks” and “work blocks” on the route due to various ongoing developmental projects. “It’s true that the number of trains that are actually operated have gone down. As a matter of policy, we have decided to stop the operations whenever some maintenance work is to be carried out. Earlier, this wasn’t implemented so strictly. This leads to cancellations of trains. Last year, there were a total of 848 (train service) cancellations between Pune and Lonavala. The cancellations in the previous year (in 2017) were 510,” a spokesperson for Pune Division said. Unlike the famous Mumbai local trains — often referred to as the maximum city’s lifeline —in Pune local train services, which completed 40 years of operations in March this year, have remained extremely poor and have seen little improvement since its inception. The total number of train trips has also remained stagnant — just 16 trips between Pune and Lonavala and 17 between Lonavala and Pune every day. There are both fast and slow trains on the route. Notwithstanding, local trains continue to remain the most preferred mode of transport among the students and employed class, living in suburban areas of Pune district, who travel to and fro to Pune city every day. There has been an exponential growth in the population in the Pune district during the last decade, with many people settling at far-flung places, like Talegaon Dabhade, Vadgaon and Kamshet that are located anywhere between 35 and 45 km from Pune. With no increase in train services or frequency, lack of political will and neglect by the railways itself, passengers here have continued to suffer over the years. In fact, in its four-decade-long operations, the railways failed to lay a third pair of tracks on this route, which is an important link route that connects Mumbai in the north to the southern states via Pune.
