• A similar proposal to procure 11 explosive vapour detectors, including five for Mumbai, is still awaiting clearance from the Accounts Department. Even if it gets the nod there, the proposal would have to wait till January when the M&P programme gets approved.

• Buying 392 hand-held metal detectors, including 66 for Mumbai, and 132 doorframe metal detectors, including about 60 for Mumbai, is said to be “under process”.

An official in the Western Railways said the Railway Board recently sanctioned a Rs 5-crore proposal for forming six bomb detection and disposal squads, one of them for Mumbai. The pressure to have something to show on the security front drove the sanction, he said. But the personnel are still not on the ground.

Getting sniffer dogs is also a labour. Trying to avoid the lengthy procedure, Western Railways has now decided to get 12 dogs from private agencies through a tender.

Getting more security staff to man the posts is proving to be even tougher. The Railway Board has not responded to a Western Railways proposal to create 4,000 Railway Protection Force posts, of which 1,100 will go to the Mumbai network, said Kumar.

Unwilling to give the exact figures for the current RPF deployment at the suburban stations, a top RPF official in Rail Bhavan said not much has changed in terms of the overall numbers deployed there since the force is already short of manpower.

Western Railways chief public relations officer, Pranay Prabhakar, told The Indian Express: “Various proposal are at different stages and all the security-related issues will be taken care of.”