Lakhs of commuters faced hardships during the peak office hours today as hundreds of agitated students blocked the rail traffic, including suburban services between the busy Matunga and Dadar stations, over their demand for jobs in the Indian Railways. Around 400 to 500 students from several states, who have done apprenticeship with the Indian Railways and want permanent jobs now, came out and sat on railway tracks at about 6.45 am.

The disruption forced the Central Railway (CR) to stop the suburban as well as express train services on the affected section - between Matunga and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in south Mumbai. “Efforts are on to talk to the agitators and remove them from tracks. All the four lines (the Up and Down fast and slow lines) are affected between Matunga and CSMT. The police and railway officials are having talks with them,” a senior CR official said.

Chief PRO of the Central Railways Sunil Udasi, however, subsequently said the rail services on the affected section between Matunga and CSMT have resumed after the protesters were removed from the tracks. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST), the transport wing of the city civic body, was running additional bus services to help the stranded passengers and office-goers reach their destinations.

“Considering the hardships faced by commuters, we decided to run extra services of the BEST buses,” said Anil Kokil, the chairman of the BEST committee - the decision-making body of the civic body’s transport wing. “We are running additional trips from Kurla, Ghatkopar and Mulund stations. All the bus depots have been asked to press additional and maximum services,” he said.

Meanwhile, thousands of commuters, who were stranded for hours in trains which bore the brunt of the agitation, alighted from the coaches and were seen walking along the railway tracks. Some even took to the social media to express their woes.

Demands

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Mumbai police earlier had to use mild force to disperse the agitating students at Matunga. The protesters, who have passed apprentice exam, are demanding full-time jobs in the Indian Railways and scrapping of the rail general manager’s quota (GM quota) of filling in 20 per cent vacancies. The protesting students also held placards displaying their demands.

In view of the agitation, the CR authorities swung into action and said a fresh round of exams to recruit the apprentices will be held soon. “31st March is the last date to fill up forms for these apprentices, for the examination to be conducted shortly,” said S K Jain, the divisional railway manager (DRM) of the CR’s Mumbai division.

Some of the protesting students said, “We want full- time absorption of the successful students in the Railways, and scrapping of the GM quota. There has been no recruitment for the last four years. We are running from pillar to post. About 10 to 15 students have committed suicide,” another student alleged. “We cannot let such things happen. We will not budge from here till Railway Minister Piyush Goyal assures us in writing. Our several prayers made to the DRM (Mumbai) have failed,” he said.

Rail activist Subhash Gupta dubbed the agitation as a “complete failure of the railway’s intelligence system. “The apprentice students across the country assembled here yesterday and the railway could not get a whiff of it. This is the reason why the entire Mumbai is held hostage,” he said. He sought to know why even after three hours of the agitation, no railway official reached the spot to have a dialogue with the protesters.

BJP MP from Mumbai, Kirit Somaiya, said he spoke to the railway minister, who assured to look into the demands of the protesters. “I spoke a while back with Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. He assured that a discussion will be held with the agitators and justice will be done to all, including the apprentices,” Somaiya said.

NCP MP Supriya Sule took a dig at the Centre over the agitation. “Hon.@narendramodi Ji speaks about Skill India but @RailMinIndia has neglected the students who have completed their apprenticeship. Request to @PiyushGoyal ji, pls intervene pls dialogue instead of using lathis!” she tweeted.

The sudden agitation also affected the delivery services of ‘Dabbawalas’, the famed tiffin-carriers of Mumbai. Mumbai Dabbawala Association’s spokesman Subhash Talekar, in a statement, said, “Due to the local trains being halted, our deliveries are stuck in trains. We are awaiting the resumption of services of the Central Railway.”