Nurses heave a sigh of relief as Western Railway introduces two extra shuttle services between Dahanu and Virar

Mumbai: The Western Railway (WR) introduced two additional shuttle services between Dahanu Road and Virar at 4.50 am and 10.55 pm respectively from July 16. Currently, the WR operates 350 services on the Mumbai suburban rail network for essential workers with 116 services between Churchgate and Virar and 28 services between Virar and Dahanu Road.

These additional services were introduced following demand from a large number of health workers especially nurses, who complained of reaching hospitals late due to lack of train services. Sonali Gharat, a civic nurse from Palghar, who took up cudgels on behalf of many other civic nurses, says inconvenient and inadequate train services often got them delayed to work at hospitals.

“About 250 nurses travel from extended suburbs like Dahanu onwards to various civic hospitals in Mumbai. Soon after the train services re-started on June 15, we would take a 5 am local from Dahanu that would reach Virar at 6.10 am to catch a subsequent train to Mumbai city from thereon. But, from July 1, the WR inexplicably changed the train timings to 5.40 am that delayed us to catch the first shift at 8 am. While I would just about manage to reach my Borivali hospital, my colleagues from hospitals like Cooper and Nair, would get much delayed despite starting so early in the morning. For us timings are important as the on-duty nurses can’t be relieved till we reach,” says Gharat.

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The nurses raised the issue with the local members of Parliament Rajendra Gavit and Arvind Sawant, who intervened on the issue. Sawant dashed a letter to the WR on July 13 seeking change in train timings of the shuttle trains to Virar and even demanded they the services be extended right till Churchgate.

The nurses complain that they end up spending long hours, almost four to five hours, travelling to and fro, thanks to inconvenient train timings and lack of direct trains between Dahanu Road to Churchgate. These nurses had to take the State Transport buses from Dahanu to Mumbai when the lockdown was enforced on March 24 halting the train services completely.

While post June 15, train services were restored, they complain that the services are few and far prolonging their journey time. “Though my shift gets over by 7 pm, I am forced to wait an hour extra at the hospital changing room, as the shuttle from Virar to Dahanu is available only at 9.10 pm,” explains Gharat. The nurses though welcome the railways plan to introduce the QR system of entry into trains as it could weed out the travelling of the non-essential workers, who throng the train services.