Meeting with Senior DCM and Agenda for 62nd DRUCC Meeting.
Prathidhwani members met Sr.Divisional Commercial Manager, Sri Sudheesh at the DRM office on 04/04/2014 to discuss on the development of Kazakootam railway station and concerns of the employees before the DRUCC meeting to be held d on 28th April. Prathidhwani raised the concerns of the Technopark community to the officials. Sivasankar, Raneesh A R, Vineeth Chandran, Rajeev Krishnan & Chaithanyan represented Prathidhwani for the meeting.
As we all know Technopark is a workplace for more than 45000 employees from different part of the State and Country. Kazakootam railway station being located very close to the Park can play major role in the commutation of employees and people are willing to make use of the Railway Service too. But unfortunately we don’t have stops for more trains at Kazakootam. Prathidhwani has been demanding for more train stops at Kazhakoottam for the past 2 years through different campaigns and meeting the Railway officials, MP, MLA etc. A short film “ Liberators” was taken by us describing the plight of an employee due to lack of train stops during December 2013 and it was a huge hit and caught the attention of medias and authorities. In Jan 2014, We got stoppage for 7 more trains and its visible that income of Kazhakooottam railway station reached 8 -10 times than before after getting new 7 stoppage.
We, Prathidhwani continued our efforts to get few more stoppage for trains and met DRM(Divisional Railway manager) many times. DRM Sri.Sunil Bajpai offered us a position in DRUCC as special nominee, as part of this one of our representative Mr.Sivasankar was nominated as DRUCC member. So we are continuing our efforts and arguments through the forum DRUCC and campaigns.
Its seen that any train that stops at Kazakootam is highly packed with Technopark Employees. The queue in front of the railway station for tickets is an evidence for this.
Prathidhwani also pointed out the lack of infrastructure and facilities in the station, there is no seating and shelter especially in the second platform. Currently there are no refreshment rooms and toilets in the station. The ticket stall is packed at peak times.
Sri. Sudheesh responded very positively and told us that these are all real facts and railway is well aware of all these concerns raised as Prathidhwani itself has pointed it out in the meetings with DRM and last DRUCC meeting. He also said that railway has identified kazakootam station as one of the potential stations in the Trivandrum division. The stoppage for more trains are considered and has put forward the same to the Railway headquarters already. Railway is expecting a positive result on the same soon. Infrastructure development is also being considered and few projects are in pipeline. Ticket vending machines will be soon placed in the station since this has been already allocated, also Sir enquired the possibility of starting a JTBS ticket counter in Technopark by Prathidhwani.
Railway also requested support from Technopark community to improve the Railway services which includes Innovative ideas, Mobile Apps etc. which can be considered by railways to serve people better and easily. Sri. Sudheesh requested Prathidhwani to coordinate a meeting in Technopark for this and to have an open discussion on this so that people can come up with ideas and present it. Anybody who is interested can come forward with their ideas and can be implemented with the support of Railway.
Prathidhwani is planning to conduct an open house discussion on this - “How Technopark can support Railways to serve better” in the month of April inviting all the Technopark officials, Company officials, ICFOSS and also Start-ups who can contribute towards the same. Prathidhwani is working on a plan and will come up with the dates and agenda for this at the earliest.
Prathidhwani submitted our agenda for the 62nd DRUCC meeting scheduled on 28/04/2014 includes the below;
1.Consider stops for below trains @ Kazhakoottam station.
- 16341/16342 - Trivandrum-Guruvayur Intercity Express
- 16382/16381 -Kanyakumari-Mumbai CAPE Mumbai Express
- 16604/16603 -Trivandrum-Mangalore Maveli Express
- 16315/16316 -Kochuveli -Bangalore Express
- 12258/12257 - Kochuveli-Yeshwanthpur Express
- 12624/12623 – Trivandrum –Chennai - Chennai Mail
- 12696/12695 – Trivandrum – Chennai - Chennai Express
- 12076/12075 -Trivandrum-Kozhikode JanShatabdi Express [Only on SUNDAY’s]
- 16302/16301 – Trivandrum – Shournur Venad Express [Only on SUNDAY’s]
- 12508-Guwahati –Trivandrum Express[Only on SUNDAY’s]
- Refreshment rooms
- Seating and shelter
- Security