Local commuters of the city gave a mixed response to the union Budget that has proposed 400 Vande Bharat trains and safety feature on long distance travel. While some appreciated the measures, others felt they were inadequate to solve the problem.
Transport activists in Mumbai on Tuesday said they were not impressed with the 2022 Budget announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as it had not much for the massively overcrowded suburban railway network, considered the lifeline of the country's commercial capital.
However, Railway officials said they would wait for the 'Pink Book', which details the Budget allotments for the railways across the country for the fiscal in question, before offering a comment.
Shailesh Goyal, Divisional Railway users consultative council member said, he was expecting an announcement of reduction in ticket price of air conditioned local trains running in the city. "The Budget is disappointing as far as Mumbai suburban network is concerned," Goyal added.
Nand Kumar Deshmukh , Chairman of federation of suburban passenger associations said, "There is no mention of the suburban railway network of Mumbai in the Budget, which carries millions of passengers daily" . The Mumbai suburban network is among the most congested in the world with over 3000 services per day carrying more than 50 lakh passengers.
Local commuters Ceazer Dsouza who frequently travel between Badlapur and CSMT said , "Overall budget seems good but for the millions of local commuters of Mumbai seems as usual no any big project for the Mumbai suburban included in the speech "
However Yatri Sangh president Subhash Gupta said, "This is indigenous budget which will make our journey more faster".
"The proposal of introduction more semi high speed trains and focus on safety and security of the train passengers is definitely a welcome move" he said.
