Located just a few yards away from the railway tracks, the whitewashed shacks are gambling dens but, Vadodara station officials admit, they've faced little threat over the past few years. The sheds near the Bharuch railway station are even more temporary in character and have attracted even less attention.

The reason why they have gone scot-free so long, according to senior officials of the Vadodara division, was that they did not bother either the functioning of the railways or its property.

The apathy is even more startling in view of the crackdown effected on similar shacks at the Pratapnagar railway yard and platform a couple of months ago. But that hurt, a senior divisional official told Express Newsline on condition of anonymity, ``because the miscreants were using railway property''.

A GRPF official tried to pass the buck when quizzed about their ineffectiveness. Says he, ``These practices are a bit difficult to control as long as there is no check on the sale of liquor or the spread of the nearby slums.'' Moreover, he adds, ``since there are no residential areas nearby, we don't get many complaints about them either.''

GRPF superintendent K H Das, too, is of the same opinion, believing, ``It is difficult to wipe away this social evil.'' However, he hastens to add, they were

conducting raids at various railway stations.

That may well be the key to the problem. Says another GRPF official, ``Similar practices at other stations came under control because of the frequent raids.''

But, adds Das, there was a difference. ``Most of the people involved in bootlegging and gambling near the Bharuch and Vadodara stations do not belong to any organised gang, unlike at Pratapnagar. Besides, they always seem to know when we're planning a raid. But the GRPF has detained 37 people for gambling in August.''

May it show the way to bigger results.