Warped priorities: What Mumbai’s suburban railway commuter deaths say about India's development dreams
A recent train accident near Thane, which killed four people and injured eight, highlights the dangers of Mumbai's ageing suburban railway system. Despite known safety solutions, improvements are neglected, revealing a troubling apathy towards the safety of the city's working class.
On 9 June, 12 commuters fell off a suburban train near Thane as it jerked and swayed while navigating sharp curves. Four of them died, while the rest were severely injured. They were the latest victims of Mumbai’s ageing and immensely overcrowded suburban railway network, an essential but deadly lifeline for the city’s working class.
Between 2005 and July 2024, a staggering 51,802 people died on Mumbai’s suburban railways, according to an affidavit filed in the Bombay High Court by the Western and Central Railways, which together operate the city's three suburban networks.
That’s an average of seven deaths per day for nearly two decades, making it the deadliest suburban railway system in the world by a wide margin. Kolkata, with an average of 800 deaths per year, is second, while Jakarta, with around 100 deaths per year, is a very distant third.
One could argue that not all these deaths are the fault of the Railways. This is true, but only to some extent. A few hundred die every year on trains or at stations due to natural causes.
Another couple of hundred commit suicide on the tracks every year, on average. But these deaths still account for less than a fifth of the total fatalities. The rest are all accidents, caused by huge overcrowding, ageing and vastly stressed infrastructure, and a shocking absence of basic safety systems.
Mumbai’s suburban railway system is just 28 years shy of celebrating its bicentenary. The oldest suburban network in Asia is also one of the least modernised. Despite the astronomical increase in loads, the Colonial era infrastructure is essentially still in place. This led to incidents like the 2017 Elphinstone foot overbridge (FOB) stampede, which killed 23 commuters at rush hour.
The causes of death are tragically predictable: commuters falling off moving trains, getting knocked off by electric poles while hanging out of overcrowded coaches, run over while crossing tracks due to poor access and track crossing FOBs. Several also get electrocuted while travelling atop packed trains, or are run over after slipping between the platform and the train.
What’s worse, the root causes and solutions for all these problems are known. Automatic locking doors on coaches will prevent people from hanging precariously from them. Boundary walls and fencing could prevent, or at least greatly reduce, the crossing of railway tracks. Better-located and wider FOBs, escalators, and elevators at stations could also prevent track crossings and stampedes.
Vestibules between coaches would help redistribute crowding. CCTV in platforms and all coaches, with a ‘talk back’ facility to alert the motorman, would enhance safety while travelling. Extending the Railways’ anti-collision system, Kavach, to the suburban network could avert collisions and accidents.
Widening and lengthening platforms will reduce overcrowding and accidental falls onto the tracks at stations. Installing automatic platform screen doors in platforms, like in metro stations, will eliminate this. Altering track geometry at known accident spots will eliminate accidents like what happened earlier this week.
In addition, a cyclical timetable, which commuter groups have been petitioning for since 2012, could increase frequency during peak hours by 30% and reduce overcrowding. All it needs is an enhanced signalling and a software change to the existing train control system.
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Neglected lifeline
These are not futuristic, expensive dreams. They are 20th-century solutions that remain unimplemented a quarter of the way into the 21st century. The Railways already has the technology to implement all these solutions.
It’s not that the money doesn’t exist or cannot be found. Over the past decade, based on available Budget numbers, between ₹5,000 and ₹6,000 crore have been allocated to the suburban railway network in Mumbai. Western and Central, suburban networks, meanwhile, earn almost ₹7,000 crore per year for the Railways.
Governments also have no problem finding the money for projects that are seen as “modern" and “prestigious". For example, Mumbai’s metro rail projects have a cumulative allocation of ₹65,000 crores. The two completed lines carry less than one-seventh of the load of the suburban network.
The passenger fare is also vastly different. The average ride cost per kilometre is just 11 paise on the suburban network; it is over ₹2 per km even on the longest section of the metro.
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The real problem is that the users of the suburban railway – Mumbai’s hard-working poor, the working class and the voiceless middle class – have no political agency. Their daily deaths have become so mundane that they cease to evoke any horror or anger. On most days, they no longer even register in the local news, let alone national headlines.
This indifference and apathy are a blot on the world’s fourth biggest economy, and India’s aspiration to be recognised as a developed and prosperous middle-income country. It is a telling comment on our priorities.
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