Bombay high court asks railways for report on medical rooms at stations

The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the Central and Western Railways to submit a station wise list on the progress made in setting up emergency medical rooms (EMRs) at suburban railway stations in the city.

A bench of Justice VM Kanade and Justice PR Bora also directed the Railways to ensure that GRP are present on stations round the clock to extend timely help in cases of accidents.

The directions came after the court was informed that despite its previous order, the authority had done little to set up EMRs.

In February 2015, another division bench of the High Court had directed the Central and Western Railways to provide EMRs at each suburban railway station, from where 100 or more accidents had been reported in 2014. The bench had also directed the railways to consider empowering station masters to shift injured people immediately to nearest hospitals, in absence of a police officer.

The directions had been issued after an incident in November 2014 was brought to the court’s notice, in which the station master of Sandhurst Road station had to wait for a long time to shift an injured passenger, as no GRP personnel was present at the station.

Also, in February 2015, a 29-year-old woman who was injured while travelling on a local train, had succumbed to her injuries while being moved around from one hospital to another.

At the time, the court had noted that 3,352 people had lost their lives in 6,617 accidents on the tracks in 2014.

The railways had later informed the court that in 2016, the number of accidents had reduced by about 8%.

The court had observed that timely medical aid could have saved the lives of many such victims.

In March 2015, the Railways had undertaken to set up EMR at 23 stations on the Central, Western and Harbour lines.

The stations included Churchgate, Mumbai Central, Bandra, Andheri, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivli, Borivli, Vasai Road, Virar, Palghar, CST, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Mulund, Thane, Dombivli, Kopar, Kalyan, Vadala Road, Vashi, Panvel and Karjat.

On Friday, the authorities submitted that the Western Railways had identified 10 such stations and the Central Railways had identified 12 stations. However, while EMRs had been set up at all of the 10 stations of the Western Railways, the Central Railways had set up EMRs only at five of the 12 stations.

HC is likely to take up the matter for further hearing after four weeks.

READ

Budget 2017: Jaitley lays track to improve railway safety, passenger amenities