A station premises that has long turned into a teeming marketplace, where you can find anything, from safety-pins to pet birds, is what is known as Howrah Station, the gateway to Calcutta as well as Howrah. Once out of the imposing red brick structure, you could be accosted by strange men asking you to follow   for ‘English’ or ‘Bengali’ (liquor), middlemen who block your way before you reached the legit taxi stand, coolies lift your luggage even if you didn’t want their services. The 161-year-old Howrah Station was truly a cauldron of activity where you had to tread very carefully.

In recent times, however, the administration woke up, albeit late, to clear the mess in front of the station. Gone are the days when a pandemonium welcomed people to the city of Calcutta. There is less of chaos and more of order with encroachments having been cleared. However, still hundreds of passengers jostle for space as they walk towards the main entrance of the station dodging hawkers, vendors, stall owners, salesmen, touts and even pimps. Things had improved a year back but is chaos reclaiming its space again?
 
A walk around one of the oldest railway stations in the country will tell a different story, where a large number of hawkers are back, spaces that had been cleared recaptured, rules broken every now and then. The usual mayhem is set to return in one of the busiest stations of eastern India.

Two families were standing near the main entrance of the station where six to seven fruit vendors were occupying the place. The vendors were continuously harassing the bonafide passengers and asking them to make a move. But the passengers stood their ground for a while. Soon an altercation started. Later, the womenfolk in the group took their men away to a different place. “I think these are public places and we can stand anywhere. Who are those vendors to decide?” the man asked angrily.

Paying no heed to police warning, some private buses, coming in from the Calcutta end, were seen standing in the middle of the approach road to Bankim Setu. They were blocking traffic and creating a jam. But no policemen were around to book them. “The buses which go to north and south Howrah via Howrah Station tend to park themselves here to pick up maximum number of passengers. We slap fines on them from time to time. But that does not deter them,” said a traffic policeman sitting in a booth.

The subway is full of hawkers, vendors, makeshift stalls using ovens for cooking, touts offering hotels, long distance bus tickets – everything looks pretty set and undisturbed. A policeman reminded this correspondent that photography is prohibited inside the subway, but he had no answer when asked whether it was legal to cook in the subway? “I do not have any knowledge. You can ask higher officials,” the policeman said.

The higher officials of the Howrah City Police readily admit hawkers are getting back. “Our policy is to make the Howrah Station area 100 per cent hawker free. Yes I admit that some of the hawkers have returned,” said a senior police officer, when asked whether there is any organised hawkers’ policy for Howrah Station.

“Removing hawkers is a daily fight. They have a lucrative trade going on here in collusion with a section of politicians and the police. Every day they are removed but they get back at the same place the next day,” the officer said adding “some politicians and police have monetary interests to keep them there.”

For the growing security threat, the police have installed close circuit cameras. “There are more than 35 CCTVs and control room in Old Cab Road. They are on 24x7. There are around 200 policemen deployed in the station area in three eight-hour-long shifts. It is not such a big place. Those policemen are covering each and every area,” the officer added.

Howrah City Police took charge of the area outside the Howrah Station from the Government Railway Police (GRP) in 2011, after the formation of the Howrah Police Commissionerate. Now the GRP and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) are responsible for maintaining law and order only inside the station.

“No car park has been provided by the Howrah City Police in the station area. The errant buses or those vehicles which stand there flouting the norms are liable to face traffic penalty. There are only a few designated parking places in Howrah Station, given by Eastern Railway, beside the old and new complex and alongside Lower River Side Road. People can pay a parking fee and park their vehicles at the designated spots,” a traffic inspector of Howrah City Police said.

The footfall in the station area is 15 lakh per day. It is not that easy to control this huge mob, the police say. “The pre-paid taxi stands were controlled by local co-operative organisations hand in glove with touts, who used to charge a large sum of money from the cabbies. There used to be two lines, one for collecting slips and the other for getting the taxi — passengers as well as drivers were harassed,” said another senior officer, adding “I remember we had arrested more than 100 touts from there. A political organisation used to take Rs 10 everyday from cab drivers. They even threatened the police when we requested them to stop that. Those days are long gone.”

A SMART ZONE

♦ The Howrah Station has just got smarter with provisions for e-bookings, free Wi-Fi zones, security apps and what not. “We have recently introduced e-booking of taxis. The process is simple as you have to go to the website of Howrah City Police to book using credit or debit card. A PIN will be sent to your cell phone by SMS. Using that PIN in the machine installed in the Howrah Station area, one can easily get the paper slip needed to get a taxi,” deputy commissioner of police (Traffic) Sumit Kumar said. “Earlier, there were around 600 people who got the pre-paid cab service from Howrah Station every day. Now the number has grown to 6,200 passengers per day,” Kumar added.

♦The Eastern Railway has made Howrah Station area a Wi-Fi enabled zone. It has been deployed in all platforms, concourses, public rest rooms. Now the passengers can use it on laptops, tablets, and smartphones with the speed of 150 Mbps per access point. Presently there are 70 access points in the station area. “This facility has been inaugurated by railway minister Suresh Prabhu. The users can avail this facility for half an hour per day,” informed R. Badri Narayan, divisional railway manager (Howrah).

♦ Users need a mobile phone to generate a One Time Password for using the Wi-Fi. Then they need to connect to ‘Indian Railways MTS WiFi’ Service Set Identifier (SSID) on their device and easily access any website or use applications. This service has been provided in Howrah Station in collaboration with RailTel, an arm of Indian Railways.

♦ The DRM also said that a women safety app for mobile phones may be introduced in future. “The minister has hinted that the app will be introduced in Eastern Railway soon. This facility has already been introduced in Mumbai recently. The chief security officer is looking into ways in which it can be implemented here. We need to work jointly with the local police as well,” said Badri Narayan. Meanwhile, the railway minister has inaugurated the application ‘m-Indicator’ for Mumbai suburban trains which carry 75 lakh commuters on a daily basis.

DG