CHENNAI: Railway stations with passenger footfall exceeding 25,000 per day are eligible to have lifts and escalators as per norms. Yet, numerous suburban stations in the city, which meet this criterion, do not have these facilities. Sources say this could be because of the faulty mechanism used to count the footfall. Unlike the Metro Rail, suburban railway stations do not have their counting machines near the entry. The counting is done based on ticket sales.
As a consequence, travellers coming from other stations, those purchasing return tickets, online tickets and monthly passes are left out of the counting. When Chitlapakkam resident Dayanand Krishnan approached the authorities at the Tambaram Sanatorium station to check if they had a proposal to build escalators, he was told the station had a footfall of mere 14,000 per day. Dayanand feels the numbers could easily be around 40,000. “Due to their faulty system, numerous users, especially persons with disabilities and senior citizens, are put to hardships,” says Dayanand.
At a time when the government is pushing towards digital India and paperless transactions, this system of calculating footfall is an irony, say commuters. “Lately, the UTS mobile ticketing application is picking up pace as it saves a lot of time. Now, the railway officials cannot say we can only get amenities if we buy tickets physically from the station,” said Pradeep, a regular commuter. He further added that if the department does not have enough funds, they can do a survey every year and submit project proposals based on that.
However, a few arterial stations which record more than 25,000 footfall even in government records are yet to get proper facilities. The stations include Guindy, Pazhavanthangal, Tiruvallur, Avadi and Chengelpet among others. When contacted, a senior official from the Southern Railway admitted to the faults in the system and said they would work out measure to calculate exact footfall.