Passengers left in lurch as trains cancelled; air fares go through roof
New Delhi: Over 600 trains were cancelled on Monday with operations again disrupted by protests against the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme.
Of the 612 trains affected, 602 trains were cancelled, including 223 mail and express trains and 379 passenger trains, the Railways said in a statement.
Four mail and express trains and six passenger trains were partially cancelled.
The worst-affected zone was the East Central Railway, which is headquartered at Hajipur and comprises Sonpur, Samastipur, Danapur, Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, and Dhanbad divisions.
In this zone, around 350 trains remain cancelled, including those that pass through it.
In Delhi, the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers stopped a train at the Shivaji Bridge railway station near Connaught Place to push for their demand for a rollback of the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme.
The track was cleared by the police and security personnel and train movement resumed after about half an hour, sources said.
Several protesters were detained as police personnel tried to remove them from the tracks and the station, a senior police official added.
Youth Congress president Srinivas B V said: "The government needs to roll back the Agniveer scheme. The Youth Congress will fight for the unemployed youth who want to serve the country."
IYC members also staged protests at nearby Connaught Place.
Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) cancelled at least 26 trains due to violent agitations against the 'Agnipath' scheme and floods that wrecked several places in Assam, an NFR official said, adding many trains have also been short-terminated, short-originated, diverted or rescheduled.
Besides the trains cancelled on Monday, another five have also been cancelled for Tuesday, NFR chief public relations officer Sabyasachi De said.
Commuters from Noida and Gurugram were left hassled as they battled traffic snarls while driving into the city whereas inside the capital, Lutyens' Delhi, which was the epicentre of protests, remained chock-a-block.
While the strike call choked traffic on several arterial roads, no impact was seen in the city's markets where it was business as usual.
In view of the bandh call, the Delhi Police had tightened security across the national capital and its bordering areas and warned of strict action against those trying to disrupt the law and order situation.
Other states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Assam and Rajasthan had also heightened security and imposed prohibitory orders in some districts to thwart possible protests and violence during the strike.
There was a heavy deployment of police at railway stations, including those in Ambala, Rewari and Sonipat in Haryana and Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar in Punjab to prevent any untoward incident, they said. Protests were reported in some parts of Haryana, Punjab and Jammu.
As the Railways have been cancelling trains, hundreds of passengers were left in the lurch with many unable to avail flights due to high fares.
For 38-year-old Neeraj Pandey, it is a nightmare he will never forget. He was scheduled to travel from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Hajipur by the Ahmedabad-Barauni Express on Sunday night. But he received a message in the afternoon that the train was cancelled due to the protests. He was travelling home to his three children and wife after a gap of almost two months.
"I work at an MNC in Gandhidham and I travelled to Ahmedabad to catch the train. However, I had to spend the day in a hotel and run around to get an alternative route home. Flight tickets were too expensive for me. I have 10-day leave, but I will lose four of those precious days over these protests," said Pandey. He will now travel by train to Varanasi from where he hopes to board a train to Patna.
A cursory search on online travel services firms showed that the airfares on the routes were in the "high" category. The fare for an Air India flight from New Delhi to Patna for Tuesday was Rs 22,265, while the cheapest flight on the route was Rs 8,332.
Similarly, a flight from New Delhi to Kolkata was available for Rs 10,055 while the cheapest flight on the route was Rs 8,112.
An Air India flight from New Delhi to Guwahati was available at Rs 29,730 while the cheapest one was for Rs 8,552.
Many of those who have been affected by the protests are students travelling to appear for several competitive exams scheduled during the week. This was a concern raised by several on Twitter.
"When so many trains are getting cancelled then how will students from remote villages access their exam centres allotted in faraway cities? Kindly look into the matter," tweeted Harsh Kumar, referring to the engineering entrance exam — JEE Mains — which is scheduled to be held between June 23 and June 29.
Prajukta Roy, another Twitter user was worried about appearing for the law entrance exam CLAT.
At Patna railway station, screens with announcements of cancellations ran through the day.
In some cases, passengers from areas where the internet had been suspended only came to know of cancellations after they reached the station.
Government school teacher Rahul Upadhyay, 30, is sure to miss the first day of school in Darbhanga, Bihar, post-summer vacations, as he is stuck in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad where he had come for the holidays.
"The school reopens on Tuesday and I am still stuck here. I will try my best to reach Patna as soon as possible. The flight ticket fares are too high for me," he said.
Protests have erupted in several states since last Wednesday against the Agnipath scheme to recruit soldiers in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force for a four-year period, followed by compulsory retirement for most without gratuity and pension benefits.
Angry mobs have targeted trains and railway properties in their protests against the scheme. Coaches of at least three running trains in the ECR and one empty rake in Kulharia (also in the ECR) were damaged by violent protesters. One coach of a stationary train was also damaged in the washing line at Uttar Pradesh's Ballia.With agency inputs
