City Pulse

If one looks at how safe and secure commuting across Mumbai is, the local train, serving around 80 lakh commuters every day and has a system length of 427.5 kilometres, stands far behind its contemporary cousin, the Mumbai metro. While the modern safety measures incorporated in the metro is impressive, travelling via local train remains precarious. Mumbai metro covers only 11.4km stretch, serving 3.5 lakh people per day.

The 150-year-old Mumbai suburban rail network does reach far and wide but is yet to match the security standards needed to monitor and serve the ever rising footfall of passengers. 

Sources say that across the suburban railways, around three to five cases of chain snatching and at least five cases of molestation are captured everyday through the surveillance data of approximately 1,100 CCTVs on the central mainline and around 1,063 CCTVs on western mainline.

The Government Railway Police (GRP), in its audit report of Central Railways (CR) and Western Railways (WR) released in April, mentioned that many CCTV cameras have been fixed at incorrect locations at the stations, which explains why several complaints don’t make it to the records.

A parliamentary panel noted earlier this year that the implementation of an integrated security system conceptualized post 2006 Mumbai train blast is still far from realization. Initiatives like talk-back system in women's coach are in trial stage on the western mainline. Door-frame metal detectors and baggage scanning systems can be seen only at stations with large footfall, like Dadar, Churchgate and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

“One can’t ignore that the Mumbai local has grown from a 3-coach service to a 15-coach service in the past 150 years. However, it is true that the security criterion has not been expanded accordingly. The reason is ignorance,” says Subhash Gupta of Suburban Railway Users Consultative Committee (SRUCC).

The Mumbai metro, on the other hand, has equipped each station with over 700 CCTVs, customer care centers, passenger help points (PHPs) for direct contact with station controller in case of emergency, real time announcement systems, baggage scanners, metal and explosive detectors and bomb blankets. The question remains if the public-run Mumbai local can even be half as secure as the privately-run metro?

“No railway minister, no government has ever paid serious attention to the security concerns of Mumbai suburban railways,” Gupta says.

Shyam Ubale, General Secretary of Kalyan Kasara Karjat Railway Passengers Association says he had recently written to the MoS, Home department, bringing forth the association’s concerns pertaining to women’s safety in suburban railways. “Although some CCTV cameras have been fitted in women’s compartment at central line stations, the lack of RPF and GRP personnel and absence of a panic button for emergency makes women vulnerable to crimes and molestation,” Ubale said.

The RPF and GRP personnel are deputed at stations as per requirement on a daily basis. However, post 8 pm, one police personnel is present in every women’s coach to ensure safety. The GRP recently decided to deploy personnel in the women’s compartment during the day-time as well.

While dedicated safety apps, helpline numbers and SMS services are run by WR, CR and GRP, the time involved in resolving grievances through these methods discourages commuters from filing complaints.

Deepti Bhosle, a regular commuter on the central line, lost her mobile phone to a snatcher as the train was coming to a halt at Thakurli station. She narrates: “The cop present in the local train, instead of alerting fellow officials, asked me to file a complaint at a police station. Seeing this lack of action, I tried calling the central railway helpline, which was constantly busy. I then managed to reach someone on another alternative helpline, who reiterated that I should file a complaint at the nearest police station. There was no way I could get authorities stationed at the place of incident to act upon my complaint.”

Smita Jha (name changed), a regular commuter on the western line says, “The response time through apps is quite slow and most of the time, you are the one who has to make follow-up calls if you register a grievance through these channels.”