CR plans pumps, drain widening ahead of rains

Central Railway has conducted a joint inspection with civic body officials ahead of monsoon to monitor cleaning work of nullahs along railway tracks of the harbour line on Thursday.

The railway officials were mainly inspecting the cleaning work as the highest garbage dumping along the railway tracks were reported on this line.

DK Sharma, general manager of Central Railway, on Thursday, along with BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta, monitored the railway line stretch between Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Mankhurd.

The central railways and civic body officials travelled in a ‘tower train’ which is mainly used for periodic inspection of the tracks. During inspection, officials found that people residing in the authorised buildings situated along the railway tracks have been disposing of their garbage on railway tracks.

Officials said the dumping of garbage along the tracks have always caused waterlogging, especially in many sections along the harbour line. It has been reported as a result of this dumping, the train services on the harbour line too are delayed.

“Apart from the elevated railway tracks at Dockyard Road and Sandhurst Road, there are garbage dumping problems along the remaining stations of the harbour line. We have planned to install pumps on the areas where water-logging has been reported in the past during monsoon,” said Sharma.

With less than two weeks to go for rains in Mumbai, the officials have planned to install pumps in order to remove excess water collected along the railway tracks near Masjid, Reay Road, Chembur and Govandi. The central railway officials have also planned to widen the drains for the water to flow out easily.

“Widening of drains is a long term plan. We are putting more efforts to expedite the work of installing the pumps at the earliest,” said Ravinder Goyal, Divisional Railway Manager of Central Railway.