By IANS,
Mumbai : Services on the suburban section of Central Railway were disrupted for over four hours Monday following a wildcat stir by train drivers, an official said. Operations limped back to normalcy by Monday evening.
A Central Railway spokesman said that the stir of motormen who keep the suburan trains — and a cast majority of Mumbaikars — moving disrupted operations this afternoon, and the stir was the result of a miscommunication among some members of an unrecognised union.
The miscommunication arose following a bomb hoax call at Dombivli (Thane district) station, which resulted in all fast train services being operated on the slow corridor.
On account of this, there was heavy queue of trains on the tracks at various points in the city.
The spokesman said that the few motormen who agitated belonged to an unrecognised union and the stir was held without following proper norms.
The stir resulted in cancellation of around 140 services of the total 1,412 that the Central Railway operates on the suburban section, catering to more than four million commuters daily.
Among other things, the motormen were protesting delay in rescue of their colleague who was killed in last week’s bridge collapse disaster in Thane and long hours of work.
The sudden agitation, which started around noon, caught thousands of commuters unawares and stranded at various points on the Central Railway network that serves eastern Mumbai.
R.P. Bhatnagar, leader of the Central Railway Mazdoor Sangh (CRMS), told mediapersons that the Thane train disaster should be probed thoroughly, motormen should be entitled to stress-free working conditions and motormen’s vacancies which have been pending for long should be filled up.
“There is a huge backlog of vacancies, and motormen are compelled to work overtime at low allowances, we want this to stop,” Bhatnagar said.
However, as the unions and management slugged it out, the commuters had to suffer unexpected delays and sudden cancellations in services on Mumbai’s lifeline.
“We had absolutely no idea why the trains suddenly stopped at Byculla station, all indicators also went on the blink and thousands of commuters tried to organise alternative modes of transport,” said a financial consultant J. Pallicha who took a cab to his office at Masjid Bunder, around four km down south.
By evening, as the motormen returned to their work cabins, the delays were brought down to around 15-20 minutes during the return peak hours.