From Victim To Voice: Sameer Zaveri’s Relentless Fight To Make Mumbai's Local Trains Safer for All

Sameer Zaveri (55), a victim of a train accident, has been fighting for our safe journey for decades, by knocking doors of Bombay High court on lack of infrastructure for passengers travelling by local trains. Zaveri, who had lost both his legs in 1989 while crossing tracks at Borivali, has now taken upon himself to see that the passenger management by the Indian railways improves to reduce the casualties on tracks.

On Monday’s tragic incident, Zaveri has come up with several suggestions, which can help railways improve and reduce the fatality rate. While talking to the Free Press journal, Zaveri said that there are three ways to deal with things, reduction in overcrowding, increase in frequency and providing immediate attention to the injured on the platform itself.

Zaveri had been very active in moving the railway administration for betterment of the infrastructure. He was instrumental in the government deploying ambulance services at all the stations on western and central railways so that the passengers who are injured in railway accidents. Besides, it was on his letter written to the high court, CBI was directed to probe corruption in railways.

Zaveri had been active in tracking reasons for increasing fatalities on tracks and also providing adequate solutions to that. It was after his efforts, some of the trains were made 15 coaches from 12 rakes trains, but the issue of overcrowding still persists.

“Overcrowding has always been a major issue with our local trains and more than 2000 people die after falling down from the train but the things have hardly improved,” Zaveri claimed that the railways should aim at increasing rakes to all trains making them 15 coach local. This, he said, would be able to accommodate more people.

“After I raised the issues before the Bombay high court, several trains have been made 15 coach trains, but not all and still there is a long way to go,” Zaveri said.

The second solution that Zaveri suggested is to upgrade our present technology of signals. “Right now, the technology is very outdated. What we need is the signal system where the motorman and the trains are more synchronized. This would make more room to accommodate more trains. Presently when the train is taking 10 trips, the upgrade may possibly make more trips. This ultimately would help in reducing overcrowding,” Zaveri said.

Besides, he said that the city may face more issues, with the railway converting more and more trains into AC locales. “If you convert more and more trains into AC locales, where will the people go? It is a good idea to lure people from the road, having a car or vehicle to train but where will the people from middle class people go? They cannot afford AC and this will ultimately result in overcrowding, as the overcrowding,” Zaveri said.

Another issue that the Mumbaikar face is inadequate emergency medication on the station. “On the central railways there are hardly any emergency clinics. They rely on private doctors who have clinics nearby the station but how will they help in case of emergency treatment,” Zaveri said.