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Withdrawal of slip coaches to compound people’s woes by puneetmafia on 23 July, 2013 - 12:00 PM
avatar puneetmafia Withdrawal of slip coaches to compound people’s woes on 23 July, 2013 - 12:00 PM

On one hand, railway officials assure people’s representatives of adding extra coaches to trains which have a high demand for berths but on the other they are withdrawing coaches.The 212801/22802 Visakhapatnam-Shirdi Sai Nagar slip coaches running by train no. 17479 Puri-Tirupati Express/17206 Kakinada Town-Shirdi Sai Nagar Express will be withdrawn from July 26 and the 212801/22802 slip coaches running by 17481 Bilaspur-Tirupati Express/17206 Kakinada Town-Shirdi Sai Nagar Express from July 30.The 22802/212801 Shirdi Sai Nagar-Visakhapatnam slip coaches running by 17205 Shirdi Sai Nagar-Kakinada Town Express/17480 Tirupati-Puri Express will be withdrawn from July 28.

Blow to passengers

While the South Central Railway has facilitated augmentation of coaches by 17205/17206 from Kakinada to Sai Nagar in the future, the 212801/22802 Visakhapatnam-Shirdi Sainagar weekly has the same quota from Visakhapatnam and non-augmentation deprives passengers of berths from Visakhapatnam.

Though SCR had also withdrawn the slip coaches to Manuguru by the Secunderabad-Machilipatnam train from July 1, it has increased the frequency of the Secunderabad-Manuguru train from three days to daily.

The 212801/22802 weekly was inaugurated as a regular train by Union Minister D. Purandeswari in the presence of Union Minister of State for Railways Kotla Surya Prakasa Reddy here on December 15 last year.

High occupancy

The same train was run as a bi-weekly special since May 2009 and subsequently its frequency was reduced to once a week by giving away one trip for operation of the Bhubaneswar-Sai Nagar weekly.

During the inaugural function, Ms. Purandeswari sought running of the Visakhapatnam-Sai Nagar special as a daily as it had a high occupancy of more than 110 per cent. But the frequency of the train was not increased by the railways in this year’s budget.

To make matters worse, the withdrawal of slip coaches to Shirdi will result in further increase in the waiting list and non-availability of berths on Visakhapatnam-Sai Nagar Express from July 26.

Railway sources feel that E Co R had failed to protect the interests of Waltair Division during the IRTTC meeting as it did not oppose the withdrawal of coaches. The removal of slip coaches is likely to increase the woes of passengers.