The Southern Railway on Thursday told the Madras High Court that it would cost nearly ₹3,500 crore to provide automatic doors in all existing coaches of Electric Multiple Unit (EMU)/suburban trains in the country. Apart from the huge investment, the work would also take a considerable amount of time, the court was told.
The submissions were made in a report filed before a Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad who were seized of a public interest litigation petition filed by an advocate K. Satish after the death of five commuters of a crowded suburban train at St. Thomas Mount here in July this year.
Anil Kumar Panjiyar, Deputy Chief Electrical Engineer (Operations & EMU) had filed the report. According to him, the most important factor to be considered before providing auto closure doors in trains was the maintenance of adequate ventilation facility and temperature control in proportion to the crowd in each coach.
“The climate of all suburban sections in India is hot and humid. The comfort level of passenger is already poor in EMU/suburban trains due to presence of large number of passengers (more than the permissible capacity) inside a coach. It results in causing poor ventilation and high carbon dioxide level inside a closed coach,” he said.
The engineer brought it to the notice of the court that a study was conducted recently to measure the level of carbon dioxide inside the coaches of suburban trains in Mumbai. It revealed that the level of carbon dioxide was as high as 1,116 ppm (parts per million) which was much higher than the permissible level of 700 ppm.
Considering the result of the study, Indian Railways had taken steps to install two forced ventilation systems at the end of every coach in EMU/suburban trains. These systems draw outside air and provide fresh air into the coaches with open doors. All new coaches were now being built with such forced ventilation systems, he added.
“Installation of auto closure doors in EMU/suburban train coaches which now accommodate nearly 200 to 300 persons per coach will worsen the circulation of fresh air... It is practically not feasible to operate EMU/suburban trains in Chennai with closed doors due to climatic conditions and overcrowded coaches during peak hours,” the engineer said.
His report stated that in Mumbai, one air-conditioned suburban train with auto closing doors was introduced around six months ago but the fare collected to travel in that train was nearly 10 times higher than the fare of non air-conditioned trains. The engineer also gave a comparison of the suburban trains with metro rail as directed by the court.
After taking the report on file, the judges adjourned further hearing on the PIL petition to October 22.