Over two months after Elphinstone stampede, army yet to send tech designs for foot-over bridges to railways

Over two months after 23 people were killed in a stampede at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road station on 29 September, railway officials are yet to receive the technical designs for the three planned foot-over bridges (FOBs) at suburban stations. [caption id=“attachment_4256131” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Firstpost[/caption] According to The Indian Express, while the army has been tasked with making the FOBs, it has not yet submitted the corrected technical designs for the same. Railway officials have said that the army could miss its deadline of constructing the FOBs by 31 January. However, senior officials from the army said the designs will be submitted soon. In November, the army had sent the designs to the railways, according to The Times of India. But The Indian Express report said that railway officials had pointed out technical errors in the designs and sent them back to the army. The army engineers had begun piling and foundation work for FOBs at Elphinstone Road on the Western Railway, and Currey Road and Ambivli on the Central Railway after obtaining necessary approvals from the transport PSU. After the stampede on 29 September, railway officials posted police personnel to manage the crowd on busy platforms, evicted hawkers from suburban train stations and started speeding up infrastructure projects on the suburban network. Five teams of the Western Railway, which conducted an audit of facilities at suburban stations in and around Mumbai, had also suggested construction of a number of FOBs. The multidisciplinary teams, set up in the wake of the Elphinstone Road station stampede, had also suggested a slew of steps to improve rail infrastructure and provide better amenities to suburban passengers, including setting up more CCTV cameras. With inputs from PTI