Kapse, who is also the chairperson of Railway Passenger Services Committee, spoke to reporters recently after his visit to Ratnagiri, Kankavili, Kudal, Madgaon, Durgeshwar and Udupi.

During his travel on Konkan line Kapse met passengers to apprise himself of the difficulties faced by them and paid a surprise visit to the pantry car of Ernakulam-Nizamuddin Mangalam Express and various canteens at the stations.

Following the visit Kapse has sent a detailed questionnaire to the KR authorities seeking detials on trains schedules, occupancy, food supply, water problems, rake maintianance and cleaning, emergency health facilites, special efforts to attact tourists to use KR as a mode of transport and provision of computerised reservation facilities on all-Indiabasis.

"The least they can do is the get the coordination with other railways like the Central Railway straight," pointed out Kapse.

Later, he disclosed that he has given up his plans for a protest fast against the deteriorating telephone services in Dombivli. "The Kalyan Telecom Disitrict (KTD) General Manager C S Nithiyanantham has admitted that there are 2300 faults in Dombivli which have now been reduced to 1513," he informed adding, "I have been assured that new connections will be given within a week of fixing new instruments."

He also announced that the KTD had plans to introduce the system of paying telephone bills by cheque where subscribers will recieve receipts by post. The GM had promised that the new directories would be disitributed from the first week of Novemebr 1998, he added.