What good are Wi-Fi facilities at local railway stations when basic facilities like hygienic toilets, overhead roof over platforms, safety measures etc are missing? Overhead bridge too is missing at the new platform constructed at Mahim on the harbour line and commuters risk their lives crossing tracks to board trains and here is our dynamic Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu offering us WI-Fi facilities at the expense of safety.
Mumbai is the most crowded city in the world with local trains packed to capacity with no breathing space as well and so are our local stations with people always running to board locals. Nobody has time to use wi-fi network and Prabhu should come out with an innovative plan to modernize Mumbai locals with extra coaches and more trains apart from safety measures than giving us a technology that everybody has on their smart phone offered by their cell operators. Wi-Fi is a gimmick as it hardly works when so many people want to use as it an experience which has been observed in the metro trains.
A request to Suresh Prabhu to increase the height of platforms to bring them to foot-board levels of trains so that no commuter meets with an accidental death and also improve basic facilities so that people can commute in peace. Comforts and luxuries like Wi-fi and air-conditioning should follow once the needs of commuters are taken care of by the railways!
S.N. Kabra
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
