Resume Pollachi-Coimbatore passenger train service soon, say daily commuters

COIMBATORE: K Parimalapriya, an employee with the Hindu religious and charitable endowments department, commutes to the city from Pollachi daily. With the Salem railway division yet to resume train services between Pollachi and Coimbatore, Parimala, along with hundreds of other employees, are forced to take bus and travel longer duration. She says buses are crowded and hence unsafe.
Parimala is one of the many daily commuters on the stretch with a demand to resume the passenger train service.They say it is more than a month since the government allowed rail services to begin, but trains are yet to run through Pollachi.
Government employees say the passenger train, which departed from Pollachi at 7.30am, was perfect, because they could reach Coimbatore Junction at 8.30am and walk or ride to their offices by 9am. Shylaja, another daily commuter, says, “However, now we reach the bus stop at 7.30am, wait for at least 30 minutes to find a bus with seats and reach Ukkadam by 9.30am. From there, it will take another half-an-hour to reach our workplaces.”
According to Uma, a headmistress of a government school, most buses run crowded, flouting Covid-19 norms. “We feel unsafe, because buses are crowded, with people sitting and standing next to us. People wear masks, but there is no sanitizer.”
Parimalapriya says buses are also more expensive and extremely tiring for a daily commute. “We have leg pain. On train, we could sit on the floor and even if we were to stand, it is more spacious.”
The Pollachi Train Passengers’ Welfare Association, which tweeted the demand to resume the train service on Tuesday tagging railway minister Pollachi MP K Shanmugam and deputy speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman, says all the daily commuters have been pressing for resumption of train services on the stretch. “This includes government employees, lawyers, court staff and even private company staff, who don’t have work from home option. We also want the train to be extended to Mettupalayam when it resumes operations,” says its secretary B Mohanraj.
The train used to see 70% occupancy during peak hours.