Day 7 of ‘rail roko’: Ambala cloth traders feel Shambhu heet

A week after farmers started their “Rail Roko” agitation at the Shambhu railway station in Punjab’s Patiala district, nearly 1,000 passenger trains have been affected in the Ambala division with a huge impact on the railway’s economy and Ambala’s cloth market.

Farmers under the banner of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM-non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) began their protests at the Ambala-Ludhiana-Amritsar rail route on April 17, demanding the release of three farmers arrested by the Haryana Police.

Farmer leader Tejveer Panjokhara said the protests will continue until their comrades are released.

900 trains cancelled, diverted

Naveen Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager of Ambala railway division, said, “So far, 990 mail-express and passenger trains have been cancelled or short-terminated/originated or diverted via two alternate routes.”

Other than this, 103 goods trains mostly of essential goods have also been diverted in the last one week.

The official said the railway is trying to run as many trains on the diverted routes like Ambala-Chandigarh-Sanehwal and Ludhiana-Dhuri-Jakhal that are at their peak capacity.

Meanwhile, Mandeep Singh Bhatia, divisional railway manager (DRM) of Ambala railway division, said other than ensuring the least inconvenience to the passengers, they are also making sure that there is not much impact on the delivery of essential goods, including coal, petroleum, fertiliser and other items, to Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

The railways are currently running trains at three times the normal traffic of the two diverted routes, but despite that the key trains are running behind several hours of schedule.

Before the agitation, the railway used to operate below 30 trains on the Ambala-Chandigarh route but now has to run at least 80 trains even though the Chandigarh-Sanehwal section is a single line, so does the Dhuri-Jakhal section, several top officials familiar with the development told HT.

Kumar said the diverted routes have their limitations and that is the reason behind the high cancellation figures.

Passengers hassled, porters face tough times

While there is a drop in footfall of passengers of the reserved travel category at Ambala Cantonment railway station, scores of passengers from the general class wait for their trains.

The railways have witnessed many of the passengers travelling to Ambala on other modes of transport from areas close to Shambhu like Mandi Gobindgarh, Khanna, or Rajpura, only to realise that their trains were late or diverted.

Manish, a passenger, who was waiting for his train to Delhi, said he had to cancel his reservation for his next train from Delhi after he came to know that the train from Ambala was delayed by several hours.

Garish Dhawan, a Khanna resident, said, “While returning from Faridabad, our train for Ludhiana was running on a diverted route and was late by six hours.”

The drop in footfall at the stations close to Shambhu has impacted railway porters, food stalls and kiosks.

Monu Kumar, a porter at Ambala station, said amid the ongoing agitation, there is a decrease in passengers coming to the station and it is getting difficult for them to even earn for a day.

Asia’s largest cloth market hit

The situation has gone from bad to worse for Asia’s largest cloth market in Ambala City. On the 70th day of the closure of the Shambhu border, the economy of the cloth merchants and allied markets has been hit badly this year.

Vishal Batra, president of the cloth market association, said his industry could be the most affected in Ambala and the ongoing wedding season was spoiled due to the “Rail Roko” protest.

“At least 40% of our customers are from Punjab, who are unable to come by road or train. It is the time when NRIs are in the country for weddings but must have shifted to Ludhiana or other places for shopping. We have written a letter to the state election commission to intervene and will also write to the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana high court to save us,” he added.