VISAKHAPATNAM: Ensuring safe Diwali this year for the railway passengers, East Coast Railway will constitute 45-50 special squads to keep a strict vigil at all major railway stations and keep a check on the transport of crackers and other inflammable materials in the trains.
The Waltair Division of the ECoR has advised passengers not to carry firecrackers with them and also discourage their co-passengers from doing so. Personnel of Safety department of the Waltair Division have been posted at the entrance and exit points of railway stations will be checking the baggage of the passengers. “We have appointed special squads at Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, Rayagada and Bobbili railway stations, five mobile squads in all the trains and seven civil defence staff at Duvvada, Raygada, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam stations which are crowded with passengers,” said M Yelvender Yadav, ECoR senior divisional Commercial manager.
Informing that the checks will continue for a couple of days after the festival as well, the manager added, “We feel that there are more possibilities of people carrying crackers from Vizianagaram and Cheepurupalli railway stations where people buy crackers in bulk at wholesale prices, but we have stopped them. A few cases were also booked under Section 164 of the Railways Act, 1989.”