Chennai: During the 2013 Budget, a day train between Chennai-Bangalore was announced, and four years since then, the train exists only on schedule but hasn’t materialized.
Naina Masilmani and several other passengers who were eagerly awaiting trains like these – Trains 22689 and 22690 – are regretting the state of the railways.
Several projects that are running behind schedule, or haven’t taken off show passengers how the massive backbone of the country is plagued by insufficient services and lack of proper infrastructure.
During 2015-16, Southern Railway carried 799.5 million passengers crore which is an increase of 4.45 per cent over 2014-15. In 2016, till December, the number of passengers ferried was 600 million, a trifling increase from the previous financial year.
Passengers from the southern districts still are dissatisfied the neglect faced by their districts. “Chennai has a number of people who come from places like Madurai, Tirunelveli but there are not ample services. The Madurai-Kanyakumari line doubling which was targeted at a 2023 completion has not been taken up,” said Soosai Raj, general secretary of TN Southern Districts Passenger Association.
Soosai Raj added that thousands of private buses being operated from these districts to Chennai have increased manifold due to the lack of rail services.
Private bus operators plying between the cities charge a bomb, especially during peak and festive seasons.
According to Naina, secretary of the Federation of Rail passengers association “The planned day train between Chennai and Bengaluru, both technology hubs, was supposed to leave the cities daily at 10 am and would have been a convenient day train between the two major cities but the service hasn’t been rolled out.”
Though the railway officials maintain that daily at least seven trains are operated between the cities, and several weekly trains, as well, passengers say this is one among the several unfructified demands and projects.
Naina added that when there were only two lines between Arakkonam – Tiruvallur side, demands for more services were not attended to, citing lack of tracks and now, even after having four lines, we don’t see an increase in service or the reduction in travel time.
