Irked by the late running of trains and rescheduling of timings, various passenger forums have launched State-wide protests.
Southern Railway Passengers’ Association members wore black badges on Wednesday and Friends on Rails, another collective of daily passengers, decided to flood the complaint books in all major stations in Kerala. And joining them in the protests will be a string of people's representatives including A. Sampath, N.K. Premachandran, Kodikkunnil Suresh, Suresh Kurup, K.C.Venugopal, and Hibi Eden.
“We have decided to write our grievances in the compliant book of all stations simultaneously. Since it is an official record, we hope the authorities concerned will take note of the unprecedented increase in complaints,” said Liyons J., secretary, Friends on Rails.
Many daily commuters complain that the recently-introduced changes have been causing them a lot of inconvenience.
"We have been depending on trains such as Intercity and Malabar for a long time. But as per the new timings we cannot reach office on time if we opt for them. A lot of students and teachers too are in distress as the new timings are not suitable for them,” said Sajeev Parisavila, secretary, Southern Railway Passengers’ Association.
According to the new timetable many trains take more than three hours to reach Thiruvannathapuram from Kollam, said Liyons. “To cover the two-minute distance from Thiruvananthapuram Central to Pettah, they have given a 40-minute running time. As a result many trains get halted just before the main station.”
Subi Balakrishnan, who works at Government Ayurveda College, Thiruvananthapuram, said women passengers were finding the journey all the more difficult.
“Earlier, Malabar Express used to arrive at Mavelikara at 6 a.m., reaching Thiruvananthapuram before 9 a.m. But now the same train takes more than four hours to commute the same distance. As per the rescheduled timing it arrives around 5.30 a.m., reaching Thiruvananthapuram by 9.40 a.m.,” she said.
Subi, and many others who travel in the Mavelikara-Thiruvananthpuram sector on a daily basis, cannot opt for the next train at 7.15 a.m. as it reaches Thiruvananthapuram at 11 a.m. only. “It used to reach before 10 a.m. earlier. But now many of us are forced to travel by early morning trains that reach Mavelikara in the wee hours,” she said.