No respite from congestion at Parel station soon

The pain thousands of commuters using the congested Parel station have to endure is not about to end anytime soon. While the plan for a Rs 80 crore suburban at Parel is still full of ifs and buts, the railways does not have any immediate plans to bring in short-term relief either.

What is the hurdle?
DNA has learnt that despite the daily footfall touching 90,000, there are no plans of building a platform on the west side of the slow line number one or to widen platform 1/2. While there is a plan for the latter, it is only as part of the Parel Terminus project and not a ‘standalone’ measure, said a senior railway official.
“In 2011, there was a plan to create a platform on the western edge of the down slow line so that trains coming from CST and halting at platform number 1 could have had double discharge. It was the easiest solution at the time, the talk of a full-fledged suburban terminus at Parel did more harm than good. It has been almost five years and nothing has moved on the ground expect a little-used foot-overbridge on the northern end of the station,” said a CR official.

What is holding up work on Parel terminus?
Another official said that the chances of a terminus at Parel is also looking bleak because a large section of CR officials opine that having a terminus at Parel as well as Dadar, which is just a kilometer away, makes little sense. “The Parel terminus will not add anything as far as train numbers are concerned. So it is better to spend the money on Dadar,” said an official.

What do rly ministry officials think?
As reported by DNA in its January 21 edition, there is already a line of thought among senior railway ministry officials that the Parel terminus needs to be built only if the 5th and 6th line to be constructed between Kurla and CST cannot be taken all the way to CST due to land problems between Byculla and CST.

Has railways exhausted all its options?
In order to tide over this land problem, the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation had sent a proposal to the Rani Jadhav Committee currently looking into ways of redeveloping Mumbai Port Trust land. it calls for using port land near P D’mello road to shift the harbour line between Sandhurst Road and CST and the utilise the space as the 5th and 6th line. “This alternative could take several years to materialise as it involves port land and a lot of heavy-duty engineering. Till such time we know whether this plan is a success or failure, there would be no movement on the Parel terminus work,” said a CR official.