Foot overbridges to be mandatory for passengers: Goyal
RAILWAY BOARD MEETS CCTV cameras, escalators at crowded stations among safety measures announced
day after the rush hour stampede at a Mumbai station claimed 23 lives, railway minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday announced foot-over bridges will be mandatory for all passengers.
Goyal also said that to eliminate bureaucracy and delays, “I have empowered GMs to spend whatever is necessary on safety. Taking a lesson from the Friday stampede at we are turning a 150 year old convention on its head, hereafter, FOBs (Foot Over Bridges) will be deemed mandatory not a passenger amenity.”
A number of other safety reforms were announced at the meeting of full railway board held in Mumbai on Saturday.
Goyal tweeted that CCTV cameras in all Mumbai suburban trains within the next 15 months. He also added that additional escalators would be built at crowded Mumbai stations.
“200 officers to be relocated from Head Quarters as field staff to strengthen ground operations and project implementation,” Goyal said in a series of tweets after the Railway Board meet.
Twenty-two people died and 35 others were injured in the stampede that took place on Friday on
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a narrow foot-over- bridge (FoB) that connects the Elphinstone Road on the Western Railway to Parel on the Central line. The toll rose to 23 on Saturday when one of the injured succumbed to his injuries in hospital, without recovering consciousness.
One more injured continues to be critical.
MNS OFFENSIVE Meanwhile, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray said on Saturday that he “would not allow” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project, a bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, unless Mumbai’s suburban rail network is upgraded.
Thackeray also announced a protest march against the railway administration at the western line’s railway headquarters in Churchgate on October 5.
“I shall not allow even a brick for the bullet train project to be laid. First resolve all the basic problems of Mumbai commuters. If Modi wants, let him construct it (bullet train) in Gujarat,” he said, warning that “if the government tries to push it through, the MNS will oppose it in its own style”.