Chaos,
confusion, anger, frustration and massive overcrowding all around the railway
stations and railway tracks of Mumbai since the last three days leading to
accidents, injuries and deaths. Over 20 million people crammed into an area of
just around 600 sq kilometers exist and live with constant nightmares in this
fourth most populous city of the world. The city of Greater Mumbai is bursting at the seams, and,
no possible solutions in sight as ever.
Local trains or
simply called locals are the lifelines of Mumbai with nearly 8 million
commuters traveling every day. People of the far-flung suburbs have no option
but to take a local to work or for any purpose and the struggle for earning a
livelihood combined with long traveling time required keep them in a tearing
hurry, always. Even on a normal day accidents and deaths are common due to
overcrowding or unauthorized crossing of railway tracks. So, it is a living
nightmare when something abnormal happens to the lifelines.
Just after zero hour on Wednesday, the 18th of April, 2012, a sudden electrical fire gutted the main signal cabin at a station of the Central route of the Mumbai Suburban Railway system. The entire electric and signal cabling network came to a standstill stopping the locals on their tracks. Though the fire was brought under control very quickly and repair works taken up on war footing traffic hassles continued for next three days leading to seas of stranded passengers and unprecedented overcrowding in the restricted number of trains running. The city and state transport corporations pressed into service hundreds of extra buses, but nothing could replace the lifelines.
It was due to
the after effects of the fire that led to a ghastly accident where three young
men had lost their lives. Along the Central route a maintenance platform was
dangling from a signal pole as its screws possible got loose. Passengers who
were hanging out of a massively overcrowded local got hit by this and the three
youths died being thrown away along with injuries to 25 other passengers.
Central Railway staff had been blamed for their negligence, but they maintained
that there was noting unusual about the pole with a dangling platform and that
it was due only to extreme overcrowding. Compensation packages were announced
for kin of the dead, but nothing was clear as to preventing such accidents in
the future. And, how could one go about solving the problems of a city where
population had more than doubled in a span of twenty years and it is still
growing ominously.
Much of the
population growth in Mumbai is due to migrants from other states of India, because
Mumbai—the financial and film hub of the country—has continued with its tag of
a ‘dream city’ where people come to fulfill theirs. In the process crime rate
has also been going up since you do not know how many of the migrants have
criminal minds or develop it after their dreams fail to materialize. There have
been several horrific murders in recent days involving Mumbai’s posh residential
areas and elite residents. Here and there in the city sophisticated and
well-educated murderers seem to be moving around who can kill mercilessly just to
usurp someone’s sprawling flats or imported cars. Women are being threatened
increasingly and senior citizens living alone are extremely unsafe.
There is kind of
a fear over the city at the moment as residents of many societies are
expressing their apprehensions that maybe their next door neighbor is a
hardcore criminal or a ruthless killer. The police force of the city is terribly
understaffed and in many criminal cases involvement of policemen is another
terrifying reality.
Isn’t it time to
send out an SOS for Mumbai?
