Slow coach: Railway services off track in Rajkot

RAJKOT: The Rajkot division of the western railway (WR) is in pathetic shape, thanks to infrastructural lacunae and mismanagement. Not just passengers, but even freight also got diverted to roads owing to cancellations, delays, infrequent timings and discontinuation of a few local trains.
Figures show that the number of passengers has nearly halved in the last financial year compared to the pre-Covid levels, despite the introduction of special trains during festivals and other similar efforts. That be it, the Rajkot division is, however, claiming that the number of passengers has increased this year as compared to the previous financial year.
According to the sources, what affected the passengers’ sentiments and reduced their reliability on trains was the long duration of doubling work between Rajkot and Surendrangar, when many of the trains were short-terminated and some were even cancelled. This forced commuters to find alternative transport through roads.
While for long-distance travel, railway is the safest and fastest mode of transport for daily commuters, figures show that commuters from Rajkot division (from Okha to Mani road) have stopped preferring train rides.
The commuter trains were suspended for a prolonged period because of the slow doubling work which too affected passenger flows, sources claimed. The project of doubling track of 116km stretch between Rajkot and Surendrangar was sanctioned in 2017-18, but the railways took five years to complete this project.
According to 2018-19 figures, 1.4 crore passengers travelled through Rajkot division in pre-Covid times, while in 2022-23 financial year, only 83 lakh people took trains from the Rajkot division. The performance of Rajkot division is poor in freight transportation too.
According to figures, the earning from freight was Rs 2,019 crore in 2018-19 which has decreased to Rs 1,690 crore in 2022-23. Despite the demand for logistics increasing in the country, the railway board’s emphasis on increasing freight revenue to offset loss in passenger train revenue seems to have hit goods transportation hard.
“The trains were haphazardly cancelled or short-terminated for work without thinking about passengers or freight. Due to this, commuters started preferring to go to Ahmedabad by road and from there take further transportation as per convenience. Some of the local trains like Okha-Viramgam, Rajkot-Morbi Demu etc cancelled during the Covid time have not resumed.”
According to the Rajkot division, the work of doubling of tracks between Rajkot-Surendranagar is now complete.
But senior officials of railway expressed ignorance about when the number of trains or their efficiency will increase. Divisional railway manager, Anil Kumar Jain told TOI, “All the decisions are taken by the board only. Therefore, we are ignorant about all such decisions.”