BHUBANESWAR: With no exemplary action or penalty to keep them at bay, political parties and agitating outfits have found “rail roko” an easy way to gain mileage in the name of fighting for people’s rights. Truth is, they cause immense public inconvenience and bleed the exchequer.
Between 2016 and 2018, a whopping 142 ‘rail rokos’ were organised, statistics from the East Coast Railway (ECoR) shows. In plain terms, there was a rail blockade every 10 days. What a criminal loss of time and resources of the country!
And in these three years, 120 rail blockades were staged either by the political parties or other outfits. Compared to other political and social outfits, Congress and Biju Janata Dal were behind the most incidents while and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a part contributor.
As many as 65 ‘rail roko’ agitations were recorded by ECoR in 2016, of which 18 were staged by Congress leaders and activists while 14 were organised by the ruling BJD. The BJP held just one while parties like YSRCP, CPI (M) and others also staged at least 10 rail blockades.
In 2017, the ECoR recorded 26 rail blockades and seven of them were organised by BJD. The Congress also organised two ‘rail rokos’ last year.
This year, statistics reveal that out of 51 ‘rail roko’ registered till December 1, 14 were staged by the Congress party, four by BJD and three by BJP. Ironically, most of the ‘rail rokos’ are in no way related to problems pertaining to the Railways but put to inconvenience thousands of travellers.
On Monday, the rail blockade at Titlagarh and Balangir prompted the Railways cancel 13 trains and short terminate 10 others while routes of nine were diverted causing trouble to at least 10,000 passengers on the section on a single day, ECoR sources said.
Poor enforcement of law and order, lack of enforcement of penal provisions encourage these outfits to hold Railway and people to ransom. Except in 2016 when 157 persons were arrested, action against agitators was paltry in 2017 and 2018 when only 26 and three persons were arrested respectively. The penal provision for rail blockade also appears to be generous and the culprits have been fined in the range of Rs 500 to Rs 2000 only.
Last year, the High-level Security Committee for Railways under the chairmanship of Director General of Police had decided that criminal cases will be initiated against those involved in ‘rail rokos’ citing it as their “democratic rights”. However, the move has failed to yield the desired results. Instead, places like Berhampur, Sambalpur, Titlagarh, Balangir and Bhubaneswar have witnessed repeated rail blockades this year.