Delays dog city MMTS services, suburban commuters hit hard

Hyderabad: Lack of punctuality in running the Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS) is causing hardships to daily rail commuters. There is no separate railway track for MMTS trains to run on, which is the main reason for not preparing a regular schedule to run the MMTS trains on the busy stretches.

According to sources, the suburban sections of the Hyderabad and Secunderabad divisions of the South Central Railway network reached its saturation point and need expansion with available sources. There are separate corridors for suburban train services in other Metro cities like Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, but there is no separate line over here. Due to this, the MMTS is slowly fading due to several reasons, including punctuality, frequent cancellations, and extended halts in areas. The occupancy rate is slowly decreasing. Prior to the pandemic,the daily ridership was over 1.6 lakh passengers and currently, the passenger footfall is between 40,000 to 50,000.Due to this, from 121 train services earlier, South Central Railway has decreased the trains to 100.

Noor Ahmed, general secretary, Suburban Train & Bus Travellers Association and Member of ZRUCC, said, “There has been no proper punctuality in train services. Due to this, many passengers are opting for another mode of transport. It will be better if Railways and Government of Telangana conduct a survey and plan to improve rail network to lay additional line in a phased manner from Secunderabad to Kacheguda/ Lingampally/ Cavalry Barracks via Malkajgiri so that there will be no hitch to local trains in city limits and passengers will opt MMTS for their travel.” Additionally, commuters of various sections like Ghatkesar- Lingampally are demanding one more train in the evening hours, as in this stretch, very often, trains are made to stop to enable the passage of main line trains and good trains. Since there are only two tracks for up and down trains for goods, superfast trains, suburban MMTS trains and other passenger trains, when the superfast train is coming on the same track, other trains are detained in a loop line this is affects the timings. It will be better if there is a separate track for mail and express trains like in other cities, he added.

“This frequent cancellation of MMTS trains is giving me hardship, as I am forced to opt for another mode of public transport. Many representations were given to the concerned officials for not cancelling the trains but all fell on deaf ears. It will be better if officials lay separate lines for suburban trains,” said Rajesh, a passenger.