Passengers at Tirupur railway station complain of poor infrastructure and insufficient time to board trains.
Sizeable lengths of both the platforms have not been provided with roofs.
“The station is almost like what it has been 25 years ago, barring a few cosmetic changes made,” J. Gunasekar, president of Tirupur Rail Passengers Association, told The Hindu .
A railway official told this paper that the trains were given only two minute stoppage in Tirupur station, unless significantly large volumes of cargo had to be loaded, whereas many trains stop at Erode station for five minutes to even 20 minutes (in the case of clean train service-related stoppages).
“It is a pity that a station used by a minimum of around 10,000 people every day and contributing huge cargo revenue to the Railways’ exchequer from the tonnes of apparel consignments sent to various parts of the country, has been allocated only two minutes stoppage. “Moreover, the facilities in the station did not improve substantially to commensurate with the increase witnessed in the cargo and passenger load,” Mr. Gunasekar said.
A major problem is the lack of adequate ticket counters. “Though two counters are there in the first platform, only one functions most of the time. The second platform has just one counter,” passengers pointed out.
P. Somasundaram, secretary of Tirupur Consumer Voice, said despite repeated requests to railway authorities and the Ministry, some express trains/ superfast like Nagercoil-Shalimar and three trains running in Chennai direction were still not given stops at Tirupur station.
“It is an irony that express trains are given stops at relatively insignificant and very small stations in Kerala like Tripunitura, Angamali and Mavelikara but not in industrially buzzing Tirupur,” he added.
