Railway traffic resumes in Punjab as farmers end protest

Railway schedules returned to normalcy after farmers, who had been on an eight-day sit-in demanding loan waiver and relief from paying electricity, called off their protest.

Ludhiana The railway traffic across the state resumed on Wednesday, a day after the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC), an umbrella organisation for smaller farmers’ groups, called off its “rail roko” protest.

Footfall remained low at railway stations across Punjab despite trains running according to their respective schedules following the end of farmer protest. (Harsimar Pal Singh/HT)

The farmers had been staging sit-ins at railway tracks in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Tanda, Tarn Taran and Ferozepur since December 20, demanding a loan-waiver and relief from paying outstanding electricity bills and allotment of plots by the state government.

With the protests affecting train schedules, passengers had to face the brunt of the situation.

“Due to the blockage of rail traffic mainly at Jalandhar-Amritsar, Ludhiana-Ferozepur and Jalandhar-Jammu rail lines, even the prominent trains including New Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi were not able to go beyond Jalandhar. Either those were short terminated or else they were cancelled,” an official at the Ludhiana Railway station said.

Speaking about the traffic on the day, officials said that while most of the trains resumed running on schedule on Wednesday, the footfalls were relatively low.

“The trains are expected to run with full capacity from Thursday as many passengers must be unaware of resumption of railway traffic on Wednesday”, stated an official at Ludhiana.

Notably, the Northern Railways had issued notifications requesting passengers to check the status of the trains before heading to the station for the complete eight-day duration of the protest.

Maintenance operations back on track

With the farmers’ protest ending, operations at the maintenance depots located at Amritsar, Ferozepur and Katra also resumed.

The sit-ins had prevented trains from reaching their designated maintenance depots, putting the onus staff of the Delhi maintenance depot to carry out operations for the eighth day.

“We were not able to clean and wash the trains at these centres due to blockade by the protesters. The elite trains including Shatabdi or Vande Bharat Express couldn’t be run without proper cleaning due to the railway’s reputation. Since the pressure majorly shifted to Delhi, we had to cancel the trains,” an officer added.