Extra personnel at CR stns to maintain queues

Mumbai: Twenty additional personnel, including 12 Railway Protection Force (RPF) jawans, six ticket checkers and a commercial inspector, have been deployed to ensure the queue is maintained at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), Dadar, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT), Thane and Kalyan stations for long-distance trains till November 15.

The sale of tickets of outstations trains' general coaches has increased by 21 per cent.

Sanjay Kumar Jain, divisional railway manager of Mumbai Division of the Central Railway (CR), is also inspecting the stations himself. The CR is running 68 additional special trains to clear the rush of Diwali and Chhath Puja from CSMT and LTT. At present, 45 outstation trains originate from CSMT while 33 express trains originate from LLT on an average every day.   

Mr Jain said, “To ensure better management of crowds, we are camping those passengers whose trains are yet to arrive at the holding area. We are also placing 100 plastic chairs in the holding area in CSMT for outstation train passengers as they arrive 12-14 hours before the departure of the trains.”

CR officials had said earlier that there was no such arrangement, resulting in a situation of crisscross at platforms as the passengers whose train is expected to depart and those whose train is yet to be stationed are cramped on the same platforms.

The holding area has been made on platform numbers 14-15 of the CSMT by converting the old ticketing station.