These proposals were the outcome of a brainstorming session Naik held earlier in the day with everyone linked with railway safety - Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, Minister of State for Home Gajanan Kirtikar, DGP Arvind Inamdar, Commissioner R H Mendonca, railway and Railway Protection Force and Government Railway Police officials.

The commissionerate would be a ``unified command'' to ensure safety down the entire Mumbaisuburban railway division. It would give more powers to the commissioner, with added resources and police personnel. As with the GRP, the costs of this commissionerate will be shared equally between the Railway Ministry and the state government. The ministry currently owes the state government nearly Rs 50 crore for the GRP costs. Naik said the railways would spend this amount to build new railway police stations and equip the force with sophisticated weapons and equipment.

As a sop for rehabilitating these hutment dwellers beyond the 10 metre safety area, Naik also promised that the hutments beyond this limit would be granted facilities like drinking water, electricity, toilets, pathways and gutters.

``I am not for Utopian ideas,'' Naik said, referring to the railway's and state government's plan to resettle all the estimated 41,000 hutments hugging the Central and Western railway tracks. Asked about the paper-bound Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), whose MoU was signed with much fanfare six monthsago, Naik said it is still awaiting the Cabinet's go-ahead. How these latest manpower- and money-intensive proposals will be implemented remains to be seen. Naik said the government would forward a proposal to the Railway Ministry within eight days and the ministry would decide soon.