Dombivli woman breaks leg thanks to shoddy ramp

The ramp before the accident at Dombivli station. It has been razed

A rail commuter who used a ramp to enter the ticket booking office instead of the regular entrance slipped and broke her leg, leading to allegations by train users that the slope was a piece of faulty engineering and should be removed. The ramp was demolished within hours of the complaint.

"The booking office entrance at Dombivli east has this faulty ramp. On June 5, my wife slipped here and broke her leg. The slope has been notorious and there have been many instances of people falling off. I approached the station manager who said that the ramp has been made for the disabled for the wheelchair entry, but everyone knows that no one uses it and physically disabled even if they enter the premise have no way to take the wheelchair up the staircase that leads to the platforms," said Jiten Pawar, in a video on social media.

On Tuesday, mid-day found the ramp dismantled. The spot showed it had been built without any support handles. The booking office entrance was encroached by hawkers, leaving commuters with no choice but to negotiate their way into the station through every available path.

"With such a wide entrance, regular commuters have no business in taking the ramp and doing a balancing act, but with hawkers encroaching the entrance, commuters are left with little choice and have to find a way wherever the path is available," said commuter Manisha Girge. "Had there been some sort of support on either side, no one would have fallen down," said another local user, Adwait Gupte.

"Like the missing supports on the ramp, the railways has been known for shoddy finishing works. The first staircase of the new foot overbridge is very high as compared to others... someone gets alert only when such accidents occur," Mandar Abhyankar, Dombivli resident and founder of Mumbai Train Updates said.

"The complaint was received about 15 days back and Station Improvement Group has decided to improve the slope. The work is in progress. Passengers are requested to use staircase and lifts/escalators provided in the east side,"Central Railway chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar said.