ECoR attitude comes in for criticism

It takes six months for it to respond to an RTI activist’s complaint on a train halt

The ‘biased’ attitude of the East Coast Railway towards Waltair Division has once again come to the fore in the reply to a complaint sent to the Railway Board on the Public Grievance portal.

The casual reply given by the board after a delay of six months has also come in for criticism by RTI activists.

The complaint sent by B.H. Suryanarayana Rao and received by the board on February 5 this year, related to non-provision of a halt to the 12551 Yeshvantpur-Kamakhya SF weekly AC Express in Visakhapatnam. He also wanted a train from Vizag to Bangalore, as Prasanthi Express was extended to Bhubaneswar.

He complained that the board was being ‘blindly’ accepting the proposals of the ECoR headquarters without a periodical review.

The complainant wanted the board to relook at the ECoR proposals, particularly in view of the charges of discrimination against Waltair Division by the zone headquarters.

No direct train

Mr. Suryanarayana noted that the ECoR had failed to propose a dedicated train from Visakhapatnam to Mysore via Chennai and Bangalore, though Waltair Division had included it in the list of trains, required by Visakhapatnam in view of the huge demand.

The ECoR headquarters had instead proposed a premium train from Bhubaneswar to Bangalore (SBC) misrepresenting the demand.

The Executive Director (Coaching) of the Railway Board in his reply stated: “Visakhapatnam is well connected to Bangalore. Besides, in the Railway Budget (2014-15) a weekly train (no.18111) between Tatanagar and Baiyyappanahalli was announced with stoppage at Visakhapatnam. This would provide additional connectivity.”

The ED’s reply appears totally ignorant of the ground realities that the ECoR had extended the Prasanthi daily express to Bhubaneswar and now there is no train originating from Visakhapatnam to Bangalore.

He also seems to be unaware that train no. 18111 takes 33 hours from Visakhapatnam to Bangalore as against the usual time of around 24 hours. Further, the passing trains have very little quota of berths, which is not adequate to the demand.