Are you Safe travelling in Indian Railway??

No doubt Indian Railway is the heartline of India, serving aroung 1.1 billion people, has the world's largest network. its the main tranport medium for the common people, and especially the medium middle class and lower middle class. As the domesric flights slashed their prices so much tht even middle class is enjoying the benefit.
But the terrorist attack on 11 July made me to think how safe we are traveling in Indian Railway. I am afraid there are so many loop holes which might invite another terrorist attack. The question is that what the authorities are doing? Are they waiting for another attack?
I was always afraid about the security norms in Indian Railways and my fear came out real on 11 July 2006. Indian Railway is the one place where one can easily attack resulting in a large number of killing that will shiver the whole nation.
What happened on 11th July, how they entered the railway station? How they carried the explosives? These are some questions and I know we all know the answers. The security around the Railway station is too weak or I can say that it is almost security less. Anyone can enter from anywhere in a Railway station. Well the security was tightened around all Railway Station after the attack; policemen for frisking, metal and explosive detectors are placed at all entry doors. But it is not possible to check each and every one entering. Moreover there are not only 2 -3 entry gates to a station, how about if one comes through the railway tracks, small railway stations don’t have any kind of securities not even a single policeman there, what if some one uses small railway stations as an entry to the main railway stations and what about the halts taken by trains.
I know, how you feeling now? How unsafe are we traveling in these trains and nobody thinking about these loop holes. And if one starts thinking then what should be done to make Indian Railways the safe place for people. The only thing that comes in my mind is to make the Railway Stations as safe as the Airports, but it is almost impossible because around 4 million people all over the country using the Indian Railways as their main source of transport which is many folds higher then that of people using the airports.

But still there are some ways through which we can secure it. One of the greatest fears is the entry through rail tracks. It can be solved by just placing some policemen, if not policemen then guards to check any unauthorized entry. The second biggest fear is the passenger trains coming from small railway stations, it is better to have a different platform or railway station for these passenger trains. But what about the security of passengers traveling in these trains, so it is advisable to keep some policemen and security norms on these small railway stations.

Though we secured the way through railway tracks and trains coming from small railway stations but still a lot of people coming through the main entries and its not possible to check and frisk each and everyone. What should we do to handle such a large number of crowd entering into these railway stations, this crowd consists not only of the passengers boarding in trains but the their relatives too who comes to see off them. We can stop people from seeing off each other, because there are human emotions involved in it, but the all we can do is to restrict their entry to some point on the railway stations likewise airports. It is better if the Indian Railway should construct a ceiling or I can say a common platform above all platforms. And allow only the people having the boarding passes to the main platforms and I think its not impossible to frisk and keep an eye on the people entering a particular platform. Moreover it will also help to keep beggars and unauthorized vendors away from railway stations.
But now the biggest problem is that of the total expenditure on following all these security norms, what should be done to increase the revenue earned by the Indian Railway, well on following these norms it will stop people traveling without ticket, I don’t know what how much it will going to help but sure it will help it to earn a big sum.
Railway should control the vendors and all shops on the railway stations either by giving contracts or by itself. As I think people don’t have any problem if railways will hike its fairs by 5 bucks per 50 bucks, in return what it is offering is priceless. Do give it thinking and please do comments, it’s my first blog.