This refers to the editorial, “Infrastructural apathy” (October 2). The terrible stampede at the Elphinstone Road station on Mumbai's suburban railway network is another grim reminder to the Governments that they have to pull their socks up with little time to waste, and repair the country's infrastructural system. Many buildings and bridges are so dilapidated in the country that they are ready to crumble any time. Successive Railway Ministers have succumbed to political compulsions by announcing new trains; but hardly anybody seem to have done much to spruce up the rail infrastructure. The then Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu had declared widening of the Elphinstone station over bridge in his 2016-17 budget; but the project failed to take-off due to lethargic bureaucracy, operational constraints and financial crunch.
At Elphinstone, the inherent rumour-mongering nature of some of our people led to jostling, pushing and jumping, and the inevitable happened. There are no crowd control system in most of the suburban network foot over bridges in Mumbai. At least during peak hours, police personnel have to be deployed to ease things out. Uniformity in foot overbridge construction is the need of the hour. Sadly, impatience and haste rule many of our commuters so much so that they forget they are putting their own and fellow commuters' lives at stake. The Government should act on important reports of past committees on railway safety, and implement their salient features.