The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi stations de-congested

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Delhi stations de-congested

Staff Reporter

Summer special trains shifted to other stations in the Capital

NEW DELHI: Taking lessons from last Diwali's tragic stampede at New Delhi railway station due to heavy rush of passengers, Northern Railway has not only made efforts to de-congest its stations in the Capital, but also introduced a large number of summer specials and shifted important trains to easily assessable platforms to avoid congestion at stations.

According to the Northern Railway's Divisional Railway Manager (Delhi), P K Goel, they have achieved major success in decongesting New Delhi and Old Delhi railway stations by running East-bound summer special trains from Sarai Rohilla railway station in North Delhi that covers areas of North Delhi and trans-Yamuna besides neighbouring Sahibabad and Ghaziabad where a sizeable population of those hailing from Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Orissa stay.

"We have been successful in offloading New Delhi railway station, and now with trains starting from Sarai Rohilla, we have two routes for East-bound trains -- one New Delhi-Tilak Bridge-Sahibabad-Ghaziabad and other Sarai Rohilla-Old Delhi-Sahibabad-Ghaziabad. It has been decided to run at least 12 pairs of summer special trains from Sarai Rohilla to clear extra summer rush. Similarly, the Jansadharan Express to Patna has also been shifted to Sarai Rohilla, while plans are to run one special train every night from here," he informed reporters at a press conference here on Monday.

Stating that it has also been decided to run the Duplicate Jansadharan Express from New Delhi station, Mr. Goel said six popular trains -- Shramjivi Express, Jansadharan Express, Duplicate Jansadharan Express, Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani Express, Patna Rajdhani Express, Vaishali Express and a special train to Patna -- have been shifted to platform No.12 to allow passengers easy access to them and avoid any unnecessary commotion at the station.

Stating that deployment of security personnel has also been increased at stations and in trains, Mr. Goel said taking action on the report submitted on last Diwali stampede, 10 new tickets counters have been opened at Ajmeri Gate side and access to various platforms has been made easy, while a new foot overbridge at Ajmeri Gate side would soon be constructed in collaboration with the Delhi Metro.

Several trains have also been shifted to Nizamuddin railway station, while Safdarjung station is being readied to run summer special trains, Mr. Goel said, adding that on an average, around 30,000 passengers were boarding East-bound trains on a daily basis.

From May 1 onwards, the daily sale of tickets has gone up to around 1.5 lakh, which was around 20,000 tickets more compared to any normal day, he added.

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