MUMBAI: The name of the city’s oldest railway terminus has grown longer, from VT to CST to CSMT, but the queues for local train tickets have grown shorter, with the number of tickets sold daily dropping almost 30% over the last five years alone.
The latest figures provided by
Central Railway show that in 2012-13 Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus sold over 2 lakh tickets per day. In 2017-18, that number had reduced to 1.44 lakh.
Experts said the figures confirmed the trend that the south Mumbai central business district (CBD) of Fort, Nariman Point and
Ballard Estate is gradually ceding space to other emerging centres like
Parel, BKC and Andheri-Kurla Road.
“We have witnessed this trend of numbers falling at CSMT because offices have shifted out of south Mumbai,” CR chief public relations officer Sunil
Udasi said.
The former mill land areas in the Parel-Elphinstone-Currey Road belt have become a new hub of employment.
“We have planned a suburban train terminus at Parel so that more originating trains can run from here to take care of overcrowding,” Udasi said. “This will also reduce the load on Dadar.”
(Representative image)