Vaishnava college level crossing
I read this in yesterday’s HINDU and felt sad.
It is very easy to dismiss this as yet another level crossing accident due to the negligence of a stupid person. Many people would be ready to jump the gun and say, “Cant he wait for 10 minutes? Apdi enna avasaram?” I wish it was that simple.
I am writing this since I am one of the several thousands who cross that closed level crossing whenever I commute to office in bike. By my conservative estimate, from 6 AM in the morning to night 11 PM there is atleast one train between Beach and Tambaram in one direction for every 10 minutes. Factor in the other direction, the fast locals, the super fast/express trains which leave and arrive in Egmore and the goods trains and you will get a better picture about the number of times this gate will close and open in a day. In fact, its appropriate to say the gate remains closed as default and opens during frequent intervals during the day.
During my initial days of commute in this route, i thought let me not cross the tracks when the gates are down and then just wait. But i waited and waited and then i realised waiting is not a practical solution. There will be trains in all the 4 tracks. One sometimes has to wait for more than 10 minutes for the gates to open and spend another 10 minutes for the traffic to clear. At such occasions, the traffic swells into GST Road. Hardly half the blocked traffic would’ve passed and there will be a siren to close the gates for yet another train. On a few occasions, I’ve even seen trains waiting for the vehicles to clear and for the gate to close.
The solution therefore is not waiting for some more time for the gates to open but to build a sub way or a flyover. There is one flyover coming up nearby, but its been WIP status since time immemorial. Every day thousands of vehicles pass through this level crossing.
The worst part is the railways are aware of the realities. They know that people cross the tracks when the gate is closed. In fact they have raised the height of the gate to facilitate a two wheeler to pass through comfortably without getting down from the vehicle.
Recently our CM, the great MK, has made an appeal to Lalu to convert all unmanned level crossings all over the country to manned ones. If only he decides to expedite the overbridge projects in the busy track routes atleast in suburban chennai…
The trouble is, our bureaucrats are champions of this Lose Lose approach to problem solving and decision making. For example, if one asks the railways to fund the overbridge project near this gate, they will cite inadequate funds allocated in the budget for this work. But they are too happy to man this gate with 3/4 guys who will monitor the approaching trains and give warning whistles to the road users to stay away from the tracks. Ofcourse the railways will give them salaries. And oh yeah no budget constraints for giving salaries to these resources for several decades. In a nutshell, India is a country where too many people are governed by too few bureaucrats who lack ideas, common sense and who sport this Who Cares? attitude.
Too often in this blog, i’ve mentioned that population is one of India’s biggest banes. But now i think if channelised properly, this can be india’s biggest strength too. The need of the hour is to unshackle the bureaucracies and pitch in for a community driven, collaborative effort in public developmental works and administration. For eg. the initiative to in the pallikaranai marsh was quite effective I think. If the govt. and the railways are open to suggestions and send out an invite for the same, i’m sure the public will come up with innovative ideas to solve the bottlenecks even with all the constraints.
Lets see.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:09 am
PK.. Can you tell me a bit about the Pallikaranai thingy? Think I missed that.
June 1st, 2007 at 5:17 am
PKSir,
very sad news.:) it happends in most of the level crossing i do see ppl jumping and crossing across the closed level crossing all the time…:(
June 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am
chakra,
there is an effort to regain the pallikaranai marshland.
as a first step, they have made the govt. declare the area as reserve forest land.
still the dumping has not stopped completely, but i saw a report in Hindu that the sitrn is much better than earlier…
balar,
aama bala.. its very difficult in chennai suburban areas
June 26th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
PK
I have known couple of close people who have died in that level crossing and have seen couple of those dreadful aftermaths after such accidents.. but I should tell you, that level crossing has been like that as long as I been alive (close to 3 decades)!! Wish our railways would understand of the need to expedite Subway/flyover project.. but seeing the MIT bridge, which dragged its feet for close to a decade, i would not be surprised to see the Vaishnava college project drag long time, even if it gets started..
adhu varai, its better to take a roundabout and use the MIT bridge..
well, i also noted that in the Hindu news report it was stated that the person who was hit was taken to GH in park station.. why take him to GH in park station, whereas there is actually GH in chromepet?? logic odhaikudhe!!