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Journalism of Courage
For fifty years now, Om Prakash has been taking the Konch-Ait shuttle. “I began travelling in it in 1961 after graduating from high school. Now I take it to reach my workplace in Ait every day. This train is our lifeline,” says Prakash, who is in his seventies now. He is one of the many loyal passengers of the train with the shortest route in the country.
With just three bogies and covering a distance of 13.68 km at a sluggish pace of 30 km an hour, the shuttle is more than a century old. It covers the distance in 35 minutes and the fare is only Rs 5. But why would you take the train then? The crumbling 15 km road ride from Konch to Ait, tiny towns in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, is a daunting one for bones, young and old. Tempos charge Rs 20 for each passenger and arrive at the destination in one hour.
Nearly 400-500 passengers travel on the train every day. It is a most genial and accommodating locomotive. There is no halt on the way but a passenger can flag it down with a wave, or request the guard to let him alight when his village nears. “We have to adjust with the passengers. It is their train,” says AP Verma, the locopilot or driver of the shuttle.
You could say that again. When the government decided to discontinue its services in 1997, thousands squatted on the railway line in protest. The railways tried to reason with them and a Rail Bus was sent to Konch to replace the shuttle. But the shuttle remained the locals’ first and only choice. Three months later, the train was back on track. Since the shuttle was running a loss, with the fare only Rs 2 per head, local traders bought 200 tickets daily to help boost the revenue. Even today, passengers ensure that everyone has bought a ticket. “We hardly ask anyone to show their tickets. Most of the passengers are familiar to us. They themselves take tickets,” says SK Khare, station master at the Konch railway station.
The train made its first run around 1901-1903, even before the Railway Board was constituted in 1905. Introduced by Britishers, the shuttle was meant to ferry goods and passengers as Konch was a big market for cotton, forest produce and ghee. The cotton was sent to Manchester for weaving.
Now, Konch has a population of nearly one lakh people. Situated nearly 24 kilometers from the district headquarters, Jalaun, its infrastructure is poor, like any other region in Bundelkhand. The railway station exists because of the shuttle. Khare is both station master and ticket vendor, reservation clerk and odd-job person here. “People treat the railway station as their pride. It gives them a status they don’t want to lose,” Khare said. Residents have proudly claimed the nearby railway station as a USP while fixing their children’s marriage as well.
Students and traders from adjoining villages take it to travel to Konch, which is the tehsil heaquarter and also has several educational institutions. It is not surprising to find a marriage party travelling by it. Or a railway employee on a joyride. It continues to run on a loss.
But how many trains make it to an episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati? On the quiz show, Amitabh Bachchan had asked a contestant about the importance of the train. “The contestant could not answer. People tell me that the question was worth Rs 20 lakh. Now I receive several phones across the country about the train,” says Khare.
