Rlys mount miseries on commuters by shifting Duronto Express to Ajni
   Date :19-Feb-2020

Rlys mount miseries on co
 
Staff Reporter :
 
DECISION by Central Railway of shift￾ing Duronto Express to Ajni station has resulted in miseries for com￾muters. As part of their experiment, authorities at Nagpur Division uni￾laterally decided to start the premi￾um Express train ex-Ajni, a suburban station. However for travellers, the decision has not gone down well as they say, Ajni lacks amenities neces￾sary for running a prestigious train like Duronto Express. Incidentally, Duronto Express was initiated from Nagpur Railway Station and it was prestige of Home Platform, it was constructed at cost of crores of rupees.
 
But citing reason for con￾gestion on Ajni-Nagpur route, division officials got nod from Headquarters to shift Duronto Express from Ajni. The argument was that since Duronto Express is maintained at Ajni Coaching Depot it does not make sense in hauling it upto Nagpur Railway Station. Therefore, without applying logic and ignoring advice of trav￾ellers body, railway officials decid￾ed on shifting Duronto Express to Ajni and it now departs from platform no. 3.
 
Infact, the deci￾sion was forced down the throat of travellers whose inconvenience was not at all taken into consid￾eration by authorities. Compared to Nagpur which is A category sta￾tion, Ajni lacks necessary facili￾ties, said, Basant Shukla, Secretary, BharatiyaYatri Kendra (BYK) while talking to The Hitavada, and it makes no sense to run premium trains from sub￾urban station. There are not even food stalls at Ajni station to cater to increased number of travellers and its even strange the railway officials ignored this fact. He said when BYK suggested starting Nagpur-Bilaspur Inter￾City and Shivnath Express from Ajni, the CR officials claimed there is no space available there.
 
Now that Duronto Express is initiated from Ajni, is there major expan￾sion in passenger amenities or platforms, Shukla questioned. Listing the hurdles for com￾muters at Ajni, Shukla said the station does not have ramp and travellers have to haul their lug￾gage while climbing the stairs putting them to unnecessary inconvenience. The coolies deployed by railway have jacked up their rates knowing well the commuters stands no choice but to avail their services.
 
The elder￾ly people are the worst affected as they cannot lift their luggage but due to jacked up rates of haulage they are left to fend for themselves. During morning hours when Duronto arrives utter chaos is seen outside the station due to lack of sufficient circulating area. The fact was well known to rail￾way authorities and it's surpris￾ing that they persisted with their decision to push away Duronto from Nagpur Railway Station. in evening the situation out￾side Ajni railway is more pathet￾ic as the ongoing construction of Nagpur Metro puts commuters to severe inconvenience.
 
The road stretch is narrow and ends up blocking through traffic as the departure time is a peak period for road traffic in the Congress Nagar area. For commuters the Home Platform was quite ideal as one could reach upto coach. Also the mid location of Nagpur Railway Station ensured that travellers from distant East and North Nagpur areas could also reach comfortably at platform no. 8. Now for these distant travellers, it's a punishment as they have to shell out hefty sum for taxi for reaching Ajni station. One Zulfekar Siddiqui of Hindustan Travels had come to drop off his son at Ajni station and criticised railway adminis￾tration ignoring commuters con￾venience while deciding on shift￾ing Duronto Express to Ajni sta￾tion. He said the other day his co-brother and family arrived by Duronto in morning and were quoted Rs. 2500 by coolie to haul their luggage. Divisional railway authorities could not be reached for their comment on the matter.