Peak hour rush in local trains is rather mad as people seek safe return to their homes after a hard day in their work places. This is a regular routine as we can witness women rushing back home to complete their household chores and the men jump into running trains to get a place for a relaxing return journey. In the rush, many accidents are taking place in the locals daily. In recent times even the foot over bridge is also becoming a place for stampede and the Elphinstone Railway Station episode opened up the Pandora’s box for expanding foot over bridge all over Mumbai stations. Rail fracture delays and the overhead wire break all cause undue delay and the passengers become desperate and run from pillar to post to get a train. In the momentum the passengers get down from the FOBs in a most acrobatic way and while climbing passengers criss cross them in a most dangerous way to cause head on collisions and some of the passengers carrying luggage fall prey to the overcrowding and the chances of stampede is becoming very high in the narrow FOBs. It is time to expand FOBs to almost the double the size of the present FOBs available and thereby can limit the accidents to the minimum. By monitoring the foot over bridges through security guards and avoiding hawkers in the FOB pavements leading to the stairs cause a jittery and the chance of accident become really high. It is now or never situation to manage the peak hour crowds to avoid major mishaps over FOBs.
Chitra Rugmamni
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
