192 trains disrupted, 73 cancelled due to daylong shutdown

Rail operations in India, especially in the east, were severely affected on Monday as 73 trains were cancelled and 192 disrupted on account of the day-long shutdown called by the opposition to protest the hike in fuel prices and high inflation.

Among the trains cancelled, 59 were mails and express services, while 14 were passenger carriages. In addition, 174 other trains could not complete their journeys in time, 12 were terminated ahead of final destination and five were diverted or rescheduled.

Giving the statistics, a spokesperson for Indian Railways said operations were mainly affected in north-east, east, south-east and north-frontier parts of the country. "The operations in other parts of the country were by and large smooth," he said.

Some of the important trains cancelled on Monday included Ranchi-Shatabdi Express, Black Diamond Express, Poorva Express, Shantiniketan Express, Asansol Inter-City Express, Toofan Express, Bhagirathi Express, Howrah-Malda Express and Varanasi Express.

"We had issued a prior alert asking our employees to report to their stations either early in the morning or previous evening itself. Every possible step is being taken to restore normalcy at the earliest," the spokesperson said.

The Indian Railways - the second largest railroad network under a single management - runs as many as 10,000 passenger trains daily, covering a distance of 64,219 km, to ferry 1.8 million passengers.

"The ministry has also appealed to the protesters to spare Indian Railways, since it is the lifeline of the country, providing essential services to the underprivileged people and those needing its services during emergencies," the official said.

Incidentally, among those who had called for the daylong shutdown was the Socialist Unity Centre for India, a prominent alliance partner of Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

The Left parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were protesting the hike in fuel prices after the federal government ended curbs on petroleum pricing last month and hiked the prices of transport and cooking fuels.

The price of diesel, as a result, went up by Rs 2 a litre, kerosene by Rs 3 a litre, petrol by Rs 3.50 a litre, and cooking gas by Rs 35 per cylinder. But Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee ruled out a rollback.

All the apex chambers also appealed to the protesters to take recourse to other forms of protests, as the worst affected in such shutdowns were daily wagers even as it disrupted the movement of essential goods from one place to another.

While the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimated the loss on account of the day-long shutdown at Rs 3,000 crore (over $650 million), the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) pegged it two-and-a-half times higher.