Title - A fully faaltu bridge in Parel

A test walk by dna on the new 4.8 metre-wide, Rs1.8 crore railway foot-over-bridge (FOB) at Parel has revealed that it’s nothing less than a ghost bridge due to an oversight: Lack of planning.

This oversight is obvious and adversely affecting commuters who take trains from Parel station. Yet the railways seems to be blind to it. On the contrary, it’s proud that it has fulfilled a need. An amount of Rs1.8 crore of public money has been wasted on this FOB, which no one wants to use because of its location.

In 2011, there were scores of complaints of crowding at the station and on the existing narrow footover bridge at the CST-end of the station. The railways had to do something to “redress” this problem. So, it came up with this plan to build a bridge at the other end of the station. When dna reporters strode the two bridges at the same time during peak hours, the difference was quite glaring.

The bridge at the CST end is extremely crowded during peak hours with fears of a stampede occurring not far-fetched, especially when trains arrive on both sides of the small island platform. In fact, the railways has had to post police constables on the old bridge to monitor crowds to prevent such a happening.

“To solve the problem, it built a bridge at the extreme north end along with a walkway running parallel to the station. The solution was impractical as no one uses it. Local MPs and MLAs too seem to be sleeping,” Darshan Yeram, a KEM Hospital staffer who commutes daily from Parel said.

Sanjay Ghavate, who has written letters on the Parel bridge to the local railway manager to the prime minister, questioned the railways: “Is it waiting for a major accident?” Commuters at Parel have been complaining to the railways about the huge crowds at the station. Besides, being a new business district, Parel also has the highest number of hospitals in the city and these include major ones like Tata Hospital, KEM and Wadia Hospital. Many patients who use this station find it very difficult to enter and exit the platforms.

The sale of mill lands paved the way for huge commercial and residential growth in Parel. The redevelopment of textile mills into commercial and residential space gave Mumbaikars a cheaper alternative to south Mumbai. The area has seen a construction boom. Malls and malls and offices have mushroomed in the area.

Former central railways general manager Subodh Jain drew a few plans about converting Parel into a terminus, releasing blue prints to the media, as a solution to the problem. But on the ground things never changed.

CR’s public relations manager Ashok Singh refuted that the new bridge was useless. “Firstly, the new bridge was built on public demand. Secondly, we have registered a decline in accidents since the new bridge has come and thirdly, there are plans to build a bigger terminus station at Parel.”