April 30: The Divisional Railway Manager's office, Central Railway has proposed a change in the local timings on the Pune-Lonavla-Pune route for the convenience of office-goers and passengers. While the proposed changes have to be cleared by the Zonal Headquarters at Mumbai, if the plan is passed, passengers will now have to board Indrayani 15 minutes prior to its current departure time of 6.30 pm from Pune Railway Station.At probably the first of its kind of meeting with nearly eight-ten passenger associations on Wednesday, Senior Divisional Operations Manager, Mumbai Sajal Mitra, Divisional Railway Manager A K Varma along with Divisional Traffic Manager Sanjay Tripathi took stock of their demands and agreed to change a few local timings in addition to demanding a 12-car rake for running peak service locals at Pune.For instance, if the departure of Indrayani train from Pune is fixed at 1815 hours (6.15 p.m.) office-goers can board the L-22 UP - local departing for Lonavla from Pune Railway station at 1825 hours (6.25 p.m.) instead of waiting mid-way at Khadki and other stations for Indrayani to pass.Similarly the departure time of L-19 DN local from Lonavla is 1720 hours. But due to clash with the Shatabdi train timings and the passenger association demands, the DRM's office has agreed to change the timing to 1750 hours.DTM Sanjay Tripathi told The Indian Express that the proposed timings would have to be ratified by the zonal headquarters at Mumbai, only after which it can be implemented. Again there was a demand from passenger associations that the L-7 DN departing from Lonavla at 0830 hours should be given precedence as it caused inconvenience to office-goers who had to wait at various stations till the Indrayani passed.``See, the Pune-Mumbai trains are also equivalent to peak-hour locals and so here the change in timing is not feasible. Though we will definitely do some special monitoring and consider the proposed departure time of 0815 hours,'' Tripathi said. The Pune-Lonavla is a double line Colourless Light Signalling (CLS) absolute Block system suburban section.In this section 18 pairs of local services are being run with 4 EMU rakes of nine car composition (including 3 pairs upto Talegaon). So far there are 16 stations in the section with a new one to be opened at Kanhe Phata within three months, Tripathi said, adding that the concept of holding such a meeting was to get the feedback from the organisations. Passenger associations like the Uttar Bharatiya Mahasangh's demand of allowing the Dnyanganga train from Pune to Varanasi to run twice a week was accepted.Organisations like Citizen's Forum, Pradhikaran Pravasi Sangh, Chinchwad Pravasi Sangh and others placed their demands of extension of cover over platform, posting of railway police, increase in local services, provision of drum clocks, strict checking in the first class, additional tracks and modern signalling system and halting the Koyna/Udyan express at Pimpri.
