Two hours. That was the approximate time commuters took to reach from Dadar to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) on Monday afternoon.
The journey normally takes around 25 minutes. Reason? Atleast 560 guards working with the Central Railway decided not to work overtime.
The commuters were left with no option but to walk on the tracks to reach the nearest station unaware of the movement of trains on all the four tracks.
After repeated attempts to convince CR officials about their job issues over the past two-and-a-half months, the motormen and guards, on Monday, decided to work as per the schedule and not overtime. Also being the second day of Diwali, some motormen and guards had taken leave. This aggravated the problem, which led to serious bunching (standing one behind the other) of trains.
Despite commuters being stranded for hours on the train and at different stations, CR officials maintained that the problem was not serious. Earlier in the day, senior public relations officer C Pitambaram said, “It is festival time and some people are on a holiday. The trains are delayed by 20 minutes and the situation will normalise soon.”
However, the problem had started at 8.45am when the guards and motormen decided to work as per schedule as their demand of following proper work schedule was not being met.
“The senior railway officials changed the work schedule by which the operating staff residing in Pune, Igatpuri and Nashik would find it difficult to go back home as the next shift would begin a few hours later,” alleged a senior member from the National Railway Mazdoor Union (NRMU).
“On several occasions we tried to explain this difficulty but the officials said that if they were not ready to accept the new schedule they must take VRS. This agitated the operating staff,” said Vijay Nair, secretary of NRMU.
He said, “We had decided to stage a silent protest by not working extra on October 28 to 30 as the number of commuters expected were less, but last week it was decided that the members will not get leave unless they get it sanctioned from the seniors which would mean that the guard would have to spend some time after work to seek permission.” JN Lal, divisional railway manager of CR said, “There wasn’t a major problem. around 10 to 15 guards did not report to work which led to trains getting stalled and its cascading effect kept on adding trains on the tracks.” Till 6.30pm the problem had not resolved as crowds continued to wait at CST for their trains.
