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High speed trains and poor quality platforms.

Recently I read an article in one of its weekly magazines of the Statesman which narrated the conditions of most of the stations of Delhi's circular railway. Government does not improve their condition because they are patronised by petty hawkers who are seen at the market places all over Delhi. Not much income accrue from users of those stations and the circular railway to the Government. But this kind of attitude is not acceptable. It brings down the image and efficiency of the railways and law and order as a whole.

I understand why there is so much buzz about high-speed trains. Because foreign capital will flow in for the kind of investment required for such projects. Indian Private Investors will form joint partnership companies and their technological capabilities will improve. And Government will write this in their report card. But the poorer sections will be still more impoverished. We will have more street hawkers selling foreign goods, surplus of branded products, purchasers will be still more compromised lured to purchase those products and a result parking problems, road rush, chaos and a general breaking down of order will accentuate.

Slowly all cities will go the Kolkata way. Genuine shopkeepers are compromised because of the street hawkers, most of them living in suburbs, unemployed and this happened because of partition.

In a country where religion is used as a rhetoric apart from development and poverty, public at large is baulked down by price rise, petroleum product price, price of commodities of daily consumption and a few others.

Every political party makes false promises all the time and blame game starts within a few months of a political party coming to power. Every political party has played this dirty game and are caged by their own doings soon enough and more and more despeakable rhetoriks are used in subsequent elections, which has reached abysmally low in the last few years. "What Bengal thinks (does) today India thinks (does) tomorrow!" It is no pun. We are actually seeing it happening.

It is high time that all the Delhi stations are modernised one by one, say one each year or say one aspect of every station is improved every year. Why not force on the investors of the high speed trains projects to improve all the stations of the respective regions as a social welfare?

More By  :  Sharbaaniranjan Kundu

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