With over 60,000 trains cancellations in the last three years, the Congress has decided to take the matter up as an electoral issue
Unlike most election cycles which see divisive social issues at the fore, railways, or specifically, repeated passenger train cancellations, have emerged as an election issue in Chhattisgarh for a change.
With less than a month to go until the first phase of voting, the ruling Congress identifies these cancellations – that it alleges are a deliberate move to accommodate the passage of more goods trains carrying coal on the tracks – as a fundamental issue. The party plans to turn up the heat on the Bharatiya Janata Party – which rules the Centre and is the main challenger in the State – over these cancellations.
Congress spokesperson Sushil Anand Shukla says the issue is State-specific as the mineral-rich region is more affected than other parts of the country. He adds how most of these cancellations are continuous and most of these announcements are sudden, leading to severe passenger woes.
“In the past 20 days, 64 trains have been cancelled and in the past three years, 64,000 trains have been cancelled. On most occasion, not even a proper explanation is given or passengers are told that it’s because of track maintenance despite good wagons carrying coal running on the same tracks. We will definitely take these issues to the people in the coming days as it affects the common man,” says Mr. Shukla. He adds that the party had held a rail roko movement last month protesting the “step motherly treatment by the Centre”.
The figure of 64,000 (or 67,000 as the party’s official press notes) comes from a Right to Information (RTI) reply filed by Raipur-based RTI activist Kunal Shukla. Mr. Shukla says that the rail stretch from Raipur to Nagpur is crucial as it connects much of Central-Eastern regions of the country to South and North India.
“So strategically, these two stations are crucial and any cancellation on that route is not just impacting people of Raipur, but also those from other States. Even the puja special trains have been cancelled without prior notice,” says Mr. Kunal Shukla.
The trains that have been cancelled include both long-distance, and local passenger trains. A Raipur-based former employee of the Bhilai Steel Plant, who did not wish to be identified, provides a glimpse of the said passenger inconvenience through his own experiences.
“For 40 years, I travelled between Raipur and Durg, through a monthly season ticket or MST which was very economical. But last year, with my retirement date a few months away, the trains were cancelled. As a result I had to bike my way to work or take the car, the petrol expenses running into thousands compared to the ₹500 odd that I paid for the MST. In another case, I had booked a train ticket to Pune four months in advance but on the day we had to travel, I learnt about the cancellations and had to use my car. This is unaffordable for the lower-middle class,” he says.
Santosh Kumar – spokesperson for the South East Central Zone of Indian railways which is headquartered in Bilaspur – says the figure of 67,000 includes the cancellations during the Covid period where transportation of all kinds had come to a halt. The cancellations, thereafter, he says, are necessitated because of adding infrastructure.
“We are adding the third and fourth lines in some places to provide better connectivity along the existing lines and trains have to be cancelled for those operations to continue. For example, on the Durg-Nagpur route, a third line is coming up. Cancellations happen from time to time but not on regular basis, we do it on an alternate basis. We ensure that if trains are cancelled on a certain route, the weekly ones take priority over the daily ones. And in all case, we ensure that there are at least some alternatives available,” he states.
BJP spokesperson Kedarnath Gupta says that because of the modernisation of railways, some passenger inconvenience is inevitable and points to the fact that under the BJP government at the Centre, projects with the face value of ₹938 crores were in progress in Chhattisgarh. “As for the movement of the coal-carrying trains, the power plants and industries will shut down. If anything, I feel the railways have maintained a great balance. And it’s laughable that the Bhupesh Baghel government and the party are making these allegations when they have failed to even run city buses during their tenure,” he says.
