This announcement was made by Chief Minister Narayan Rane soon after the cabinet meeting at Mahabaleshwar today. With the setting up of the commissionerate, the GRP will be given an additional force of 717 personnel.

Presently, the GRP has a staff-strength of nearly 2900 in the city spread over eight police stations on both Central and Western Railway which, officers claim, is too little to tackle crime effectively. ``A police station at Kurla, with a strength of 350-odd policemen, covers an area from Kurla to Mulund on the Main Line and Khandeshwar on the Harbour Line,'' said a senior official.

Happily for the railway police, the 700 additional staff will man five new police stations which will be set up at Churchgate andAndheri on the Western Railway and at Vashi, Panvel and Wadala on the Central Railway. The total cost of setting up the Commissionerate will be around Rs 7 crore, which will be shared equally by the railways and the state.

The Commissionerate, to be divided into two zones, will be headed by a Deputy Inspector General of Police. It's jurisdiction will range from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Nasik Road and Panvel and Churchgate to Bordi.

After the state government's approval the setting up of the commissionerate will require the nod from the Railway Board too. However, senior railway police officials are hoping that the presence of Ram Naik in the Railway Ministry will speed up matters there. ``I think it is only a formality. The Union Railway Minister has also stated his government's desire to set up the Commissionerate on the floor of the Parliament,'' said a senior official.

The government has also decided to set up a separate railway division at Aurangabad, carving it out from the Nagpurdivision. The new division will cover Jalgaon, Manmad, Bhusawal and the Marathwada region.

An 358 additional staff strength will be created under this new division and would cost the state exchequer Rs 2.84 crore. Rane has urged the Central Government to bear 50 per cent of the burden. At present there are three such divisions in Maharashtra at Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.

The decision to set up the Commissionerate was taken in November last year after the Jaybala Ashar mugging incident on a local train. Ashar, who was robbed and pushed out of a running local near Charni Road, lost her lower limbs in the incident. Over 70 stone-throwing incidents were also reported on the suburban section which left many people blinded in one eye.