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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, Sept 4: Hundreds of Malayalees kept a fast today – the main day of the Malayali harvest festival Onam – and chanted slogans flaying the Indian Railways for poor services on the Netravati Express. The Netravati, one of the main trains ferrying Malyalees to Kerala, has been beset with problems ever since it was transferred to the Konkan Railway.
Though Konkan Railway has agreed to their demands of a pantry car attached to the train and to improve its punctuality, the Malyalees, banded under the Keraleeya Sanghatana, an umbrella body of 60 organisations, kept up the pressure and continued with a day long fast at Azad Maidan today.
“The Central Railway has agreed to only two of our demands, while our list includes an increase in the number of rakes for Netravati,” said Sanghatana president A K Nair. Since the Netravati joined the Konkan Railways, its six rakes have been reduced to three. Also, trains which had 21 bogies earlier now have only 17. With 20 lakh Keralites in the city, not counting Gulfreturnees, the Sanghatana feels the rakes are insufficient.
“Kerala is the worst served by the KRC despite being the first state to fund it,” said V A Mathew, spokesperson for the group. The Sanghatana has also demanded track doubling between Shornur and Mangalore. Due to the absence of a railway track, the Netravati stops once it reaches Shornur to give preference to local trains. This delays those trains which are already running behind schedule, said the members.
Pointing to the poor conditions at Kurla Terminus, the daily fleecing of passengers by autorickshaws and random checking of passengers by just about anybody, the Sanghatana has demanded that the train leave from Dadar instead of Kurla. Among their other demands are that the train be extended to Trivandrum and the Kurla-Bangalore-Coimbatore train be extended to Ernakulum.
Passengers also want a rescheduling of the departure and arrival timings of the Netravati at Ernakulum since at 4.30 am, they find it difficult to board the train. Again,with the compulsory delay in arrival, the train inevitably reaches Ernakulum at 12.30 at night, making it impossible to get other modes of transport to reach their homes.
