The second meeting of Coalition for Safe Rail Travel (CSRT) was held at Moneylife Knowledge Centre, Moneylife Foundation in Dadar (W). There were around 15-17 activists from various passenger organisations present at the meeting. Mr Pandey, ASC-cum-Staff Officer (RPF) Central Railway was also present during the meeting. Here are the important discussions that took place…
Medical Room at stations
Samir Zaveri informed the members that as per the rules, nobody except a doctor is allowed to open first aid box at stations. Due to this stringent procedure, first aid boxes at many stations are not being utilised and several times, the medicines in such boxes become useless. Mr Pandey, mentioned that all stations masters are given basic training about first aid.
New pass for six or 12 months duration
Members wanted to know from Mr Pandey about the new monthly pass introduced by the railways for a duration of six months and one year. Some members wanted to know what would happen if such pass gets lost or stolen. Mr Pandey said, this subject is related with policies and need to check with the personal department, which looks after the season
tickets.
Ambulances at Railway stations
Some members pointed out that instead of asking for ambulances and parking space, why not to see if we could use the private services like GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI.in). EMRI uses a free service on 108 across Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and 2 Union Territories Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu. Shirish Shanbhag pointed out that the number 108 is used in Mumbai by the disaster management cell of BMC and for ambulances, 1298 is used. It was decided to post more info about GVK EMRI and its 108 services on CSRT’s page on Facebook. Sampath Shetty would collate all the info about this and post on the Facebook page.
Closed boundary walls
Gaurang Damani, shares his finding on the closed boundary walls on Central Railway. He travelled in the motorman’s cabin (courtesy, the CR) from CST to Thane and then on Harbour line to get the first-hand knowledge of the work being carried out by the CR. He said the work of boundary walls in almost complete between CST to Dadar. There are certain pockets, especially in and around Kurla station, where the work is slow. But as per his information, the CR has promised to close all boundaries across stations in near future. Gaurang said there is a lot of work needs to be done on the Harbour line as jhuggies and shanties surround this area. It was then decided to collect accident related data between CST and Dadar to see the impact of closed boundary wall over the next two-three months. Gaurang and Samir would share the data.