The divide among the Mumbai rail commuter has today deepened. Unlike earlier when commuters had division of various classes, the first, second, the various categories like ladies, luggage and the disabled ones fighting for space in single 12-car train, the division has now moved between trains itself- the AC and the non-AC ones. And the reason is the fare difference.

While most of the 8 million commuters still prefer the regular non-AC locals due to its (cheapest in the world) affordable fare structure, there has been an increasing number of passengers who are willing to pay for AC local services for their exclusivity though they do not necessarily get good service. There has been a steady increase in their numbers and the railways have been adding to the AC fleet of trains.

But here’s a catch. The AC services are being increased at the cost of regular ones as they are all being run in the same saturated system up and  down. So the number of services remain steady and one comes at the cost of another, which has become the bone of contention.

What can be done?

To settle the differences, one of the easiest solutions would be to get the fares corrected. The railways cannot do it and it needs to happen politically. If the regular local train fares have been kept dirt cheap at 13 to 14 paise per km fares, being the damn AC fares further down as well, politically to bring in equality for Mumbai commuters. It would be populist, an economical disaster and pampering the public, but equality will prevail and end the divide once and for all (as it is railways have planned to convert the entire Mumbai fleet into AC in the future).

However, in my opinion, a prudent, practical and need-of-the-hour solution is to offer a fare correction to existing non-AC local trains to bring in the gap closer. But this needs to be done along with streamlining operations by rationalising services for further efficiency. For long, the fares of Mumbai local trains have remained dirt cheap and they need to be corrected. An attempt was made in 2014, but had to be reversed. And as we do that we need to streamline the set up of Mumbai railway into a zone, rationalise services, once segregation of corridors is complete. Mumbai railway needs attention to get this done.

What is being done?

The Indian Railways have announced that it intends to convert the entire Mumbai local fleet into AC (238 rakes or 2,856 rail cars) and the process has started. The tendering process is taking time because it is not just the train that needs to be manufactured like the earlier Mumbai Urban Transport Projects (MUTP) ones, but it is a comprehensive contract of outsourcing the manufacture and maintenance for a period of 35 years  along with maintenance of two massive carsheds, one each on CR and WR (Bhivpuri & Vangaon). The train is being designed and customised for the peculiarities of Mumbai. It is a over Rs 21,000 crore contract of train, the sheer scale or volume never taken up earlier with too many questions, queries going back and forth between teams. But it is on track.