Land dispute resolved, more locals from Borivli soon

If you wondered why there were few trains plying from Borivli's 6 and 6A platforms all this while, you can hold a small BMC-owned plot near the railway station responsible for it. This land has been restricting train services starting from these platforms, for a long time now.

On track: The acquired land will be used to set up tracks and crossovers and connect them with the track between platforms 6u00a0and 6A

However, the long-standing dispute over the piece of land measuring 6 meters in width and 24 meters in length has finally been sorted between the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Western Railway (WR).

Officials claim that the acquired land will be used to set up tracks and crossovers, and connect them with the track between platforms 6 and 6A. In exchange, WR has agreed to trade a piece of their own land of similar length and width with the BMC. At present, every day, only 4 trains use platform 6A, and 12 trains use platform 6, which are divided by a single track. The length of platform 6A is shorter than platform 6.

Officials claim that the purpose of building the two platforms were to boost more train services from Borivli to Virar. "Currently, if a train has to go further up north towards Virar, it has to halt at platform 6 or 6A, until a train enters platform 5 from the Virar side. This wastes a lot of time. Once we develop this plot of land, we can simultaneously run the train services," said a WR official. The work on this plot of land will be time-consuming and will be on till mid-2014, he added.

This solution might help get the train services back on track without having to wait for trains to halt on platform 5, which is primarily used by fast trains coming from Virar. The situation takes a turn for the worse during peak hours. When long-distance trains enter the picture, further delays are caused.

Long distance trains usually disrupt the schedule of local trains, as the local trains have to wait for 5-7 minutes, until the outstation train leaves Borivli. This results in a cascading effect on the overall train schedules.

"The issue of land has been sorted. We can expect more services from Borivli once the work on this plot is complete," said Shailendra Kumar, divisional railway manager (Mumbai), Western Railway. This will also improve Virar-bound slow train services halting on platform 3, which at times, halt on platform 5 during peak hours. u00a0u00a0

3 lakh
Number of commuters that travel from Borivli, one of the biggest railway stations on Western Railways' suburban corridor, every day

900
Number of local trains arriving and departing from Borivli

9
No of platforms in Borivliu00a0