A week after the ADC reported on how commuters at the Cotton Green station on the Harbour Line were affected after fences were erected between two tracks, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wrote a letter to the Railways asking them to make provisions for reopening the closed ticketing windows on the station premises.
It may be recalled that in our issue dated May 18, 2012 under the headline ‘Fencing to Death?’, it was highlighted that the fencing project started causing inconvenience to several commuters at Cotton green station where there is only one ticketing window to book tickets and passengers got a rude shock on after they found metal fencing along the tracks blocking the only place for the commuters to cross over for booking a ticket. According to commuters, even though there are three ticket booking counters – one at the elevated level and two in the east and western side of the platform, only the ticket booking counter on the elevated level is open.
Based on the report, the local Sena leaders on Thursday wrote a letter to the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager asking him to reopen the closed ticketing window. The Sena has also put up huge flex banners on the station premises about the letter and the apathy of the station.
Vaibhavi Chavan, local corporator from the locality said, “We are shocked that the fencing has been done without considering the apathy of the passengers who use this station everyday. Even elderly persons are not forced to climb up the station to get a ticket and later climb down to get to platform no.2. Some of the people are forced to walk all the way to the fence.”
Jayesh Mehta, leader of the Bhartiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS) ward 200 said, “Several people approached us with their complaints on the new fencing done at Cotton Green. We also met the station master about this issue. However, he seemed uncooperative and asked us to meet the higher ups in the matter. We are only demanding that the railways should build an FOB for passengers at station or the closed ticketing windows should be reopened. We have decided to stage an agitation if the situation continues and our demands are not met.”
When asked, Atul Rane, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr. DCM), CR, said, “We have received the letter and we will be confirming it with the department which is executing the work.”