By IANS,
Mumbai: A 36-hour strike by suburban train drivers that crippled India’s financial capital ended Tuesday evening shortly after the authorities cracked down on the strikers for causing chaos but promised to back their demands for better working conditions.
Some seven million commuters who use the electric trains daily heaved a sigh of relief as Maharashtra’s Home Minister R.R. Patil announced the end of the work stoppage after talks with union leaders.
Patil told reporters that the state government would take up the demands of the motormen, as the drivers are known, with the central Railway Board. Disciplinary action taken against the strikers would be withdrawn.
“We told them (motormen) that commuters were being inconvenienced unnecessarily. They placed their demands. I told them that the government would put forward their demands to the Railway Board,” Patil said.
The drivers are demanding higher wages, including overtime allowances, and safety on the tracks.
Nearly 1,000 drivers launched the protest Monday with hunger strike. By evening, the number of trains, the city’s lifeline, had thinned so steeply that hundreds of thousands were left stranded on streets.
As Tuesday dawned, Mumbai came to a virtual halt. Much of the city stood still. The few trains that still plied carried passengers packed like sardines, with many dangerously perched on the roof of the train coaches.
The situation was so bad that while Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab’s trial was the main story for television channels, the railway strike dominated Mumbai newspapers Tuesday — although it was Mumbai that Kasab and the other terrorists had attacked.
The work stoppage, the worst Mumbai has seen since the railway strike of 1974, compelled the railways to issue a rare advisory Tuesday asking people not to commute unless it was a must.
Sensing the critical situation, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan indicated he would take up the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
But as protests by the motormen found an echo in the Lok Sabha, with MPs from Mumbai and Maharashtra creating a din, the state government announced it was invoking the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to force the drivers to return to work.
In no time, police began arresting striking drivers, accusing them of preventing others from returning to work. After some 80 of them were taken into custody, Home Minister Patil opened conciliatory talks.
The railways earlier resorted to desperate – but insufficient – measures like permitting people to travel on long-distance trains on the same routes and making them halt at all suburban stations.
State-owned buses chipped in to help stranded commuters by deploying more buses in the city and elsewhere. Taxis and autorickshaws were in heavy demand.
Mumbai University said any student delayed for the 40-odd final examinations need not panic. They would be permitted extra time to write their papers.
Mumbai’s train services cover the entire city and also link the adjoining districts of Thane and Raigad, helping millions to criss-cross efficiently in a city where time is immensely valued.
Officials said Tuesday evening that motormen had begun returning to work but the train services would become normal only close to midnight.
The trains on Central Railway and Western Railway networks account for 2,704 daily services. With with nine, 12 or 15 coaches, they transport the people from one part of Mumbai to another with clockwork precision.