Yes expansion of Mumbai suburban rly on war footing is a must and an absolute necessity today. Law of nature says, in order to have better future one have to make up for the past mistakes.
Readers will be surprised to know that Mumbai Suburban was earlier generating handsome operational surpluses, probably the only one in the world ! Whereas the ones at Kolkata & Chennai were perennially making heavy losses!! Alas! these pleasant days are gone due to the fact that those profits had been wiped away by inflation. Thanks to policy of no increase of second class fares for 10-11 years in a row. Result is the second class fares have become ridiculously low as compared to...
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rates of daily consumption items like food. How can an organization sustain profits without increasing fares and merely by increase in traffic and efficiency when the operational cost inflate to around three fold in a span of more than 10 years ?
Unfortunately, the profit making boy (Mumbai Suburban Rly System) was not rewarded by means of Capacity Augmentation to take on the burgeoning traffic. Result of decades of negligence is extreme overcrowding in suburban leading to death of thousands of hard working Mumbaikars every year. IRly is trying hard with little success to contain it through myriad of steps, but lasting solution lies in attacking root cause i.e. inadequate capacity.
After MUTP-1, no noticeable capacity augmentation of Mumbai Suburban Network was done during more than a decade in 80s and 90s. Result the suburban travel became worse. Only after MUTP-II was embarked (Thanks to great Mumbaikar Ram Naik Ji), significant capacity augmentation did took place which was turned out to be too little & too late.
Now expansion of Mumbai suburban railway on war footing is the only solution. Recent Speeding up of Mumbai Metro projects and planning of new corridors like virar-Alibaug, and Navi Mumbai projects are welcome step. We are hopeful that RM himself experienced the Mumbai Suburban travel, shall take all possible steps to make Mumbai suburban travel SAFE and comfortable.