Congress' Adhir Chowdhury urges Railway Minister to resume local trains in West Bengal

Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal requesting him to resume local train services in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal. He pointed out the resumption of Indian Railway services in various sectors to facilitate the travel of people, however, the local train services in Kolkata and across the Sstate for regular passengers have not been resumed which is causing inconvenience to the local travellers who travel for employment or other work.

"Railway services were restored in various sectors to facilitate the travel of people. However, many segments of services are still out of bounds for common folk much to the discomfort of the regular passengers of train services, one such segment is the local train services in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal," the letter read.

The letter by Choudhury has come in the backdrop of violence at Howrah station after the railway police chased away some commuters as they tried to break open the locked gate of the Howrah-Burdwan Staff Special Train at the station on Saturday.

In his letter, he also mentioned the incident of violence between the railway police and commuters, adding that Railway Ministry could prevent such incidents had the railway ministry and the state government worked in unison to avert such incidents.

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State government writes to Eastern Railways

Earlier in the day, the West Bengal government wrote to the Eastern Railway (ER) seeking discussions for plying of a few pairs of suburban trains daily observing the COVID-19 regulations.

A letter by the government to the Eastern Railway general manager Suneet Sharma read, "Government of West Bengal has all along been keen to maintain/resume normal transportation services for all sections of the society. As you are kindly aware, our skylines are open for national and international flights, our assistance has been rendered for movement of special trains in, from and to the state. Our busses are giving robust public services to commuters at large."

Noting that the state government has helped the railway authorities to run metro trains peacefully and efficiently, the home secretary urged the Eastern Railways to run a few pair of suburban trains daily.

"Indeed, rather than taking resort (resorting) to unquiet means, we could and discuss how a few pairs of trains could be run locally in the morning and in the afternoon hours to serve the general commuters at large," read the letter written by Additional Chief Secretary H K Dwivedi.

The decision to write to Eastern Railways has also been taken after taking note of the violent Howrah station incident. A spokesman of Eastern Railway said some of the commuters boarded the train which was meant for railway employees during the COVID-19 time as regular train services are yet to resume. However, as these commuters were forced to disembark by the railway police, they regrouped and tried to break open the gates to board the compartments again, he said.

The commuters, numbering around hundred, were then chased away by a joint team of the Government Railway Police and Railway Protection Force from the platform, the spokesman said.

The commuters, however, have alleged the railway police resorted to unprovoked lathi charge and chased them away from the station platform.

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