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indianexpress: Total chaos prevailed at Pune Railway Station on Thursday, the first day for the 90-day advance reservation facility introduced by the Ministry of Railways. Thousands of service personnel and civilians jostled with for space right through the night to confirm their reservations for journey on June 1.

The Railway Police had a tough time dealing with the milling crowds, with fisticuffs and other unruly scenes breaking out as it soon became apparent that confirmed berths disappeared minutes after the computerised reservation counters opened for business at 8 am. The worst to suffer were defence personnel who had turned up to confirm their railway warrants, with only three counters assigned to them.

Fearing the situation may get out of hand, Station Manager J M Laturkar ordered additional reinforcements of railway and military police. As it took time for the reinforcements to arrive, the situation steadily worsened with only four policemen and four general military police personnel to control the mob.

“The reservation facility for 90 days in advance started only today. Hence there is a heavy rush. Even otherwise the counters have long queues this time of the year. We have sought additional Railway Police Force (RPF) men and military police to control the situation. Instructions have been issued to the chief reservation supervisor to monitor the situation,’’ Laturkar said.

In a bid to defuse the building tension, the railway authorities took an unprecedented step by opening all 16 reservation counters — three separate counters for the defence personnel, 12 for civilians and 1 manual counter working two shifts. To beat the rush, the counters will continue to remain open for the next three days, from 8 am to 3 pm and from 3.15 pm to 10 pm.

indianexpress: The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has taken strong exception to the 15-year-long renovation and extension work going on at Kamala Nehru Hospital run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) in Mangalwar Peth. The party has also threatened an agitation if the work is not expedited.

“The completion of the renovation and extension work is nowhere in sight and even after 15 years the hospital used by the poor and the needy of the city is a shabby, unclean place where the infrastructure is crumbling and even basic facilities are lacking,” said a press note issued by the MNS on Thursday.

The MNS claimed to have done a surprise check on the hospital premises recently and said there was a woeful lack of basic facilities like a lift, benches, parking lot, canteen and drinking water facilities for patients or their relatives. “There are two lifts, both not in working condition while the water taps have run dry a long time ago,” said the press note.

The survey of the hospital raised a number of other issues like lack of sufficient qualified staff- especially nurses, non-working computer facilities, and the total lack of modern amenities. “All this when the PMC was showing crores of rupees spent on the renovation and modernisation work going on for a decade and a half,” said MNS Kasba area vice president Prahlad Gawali.

Gawli further said, “If the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation can run a quality hospital like KEM, why can not the PMC do the same with Kamala Nehru hospital”. The hospital has enough space to accommodate specialised sections for treatment of heart diseases and kidney ailments, but no efforts have been made by the PMC to introduce these modern facilities.

The MNS feels the PMC could well start by setting up a well-stocked pharmacy and modern blood bank facility within the premsis of the hospital. Private companies and pharmaceuticals would be more than willing to supply medicines while the city had several voluntary organisations supply blood at subsidised rates for the poor if the PMC bothers to put in a request.