MUMBAI, Oct. 4 -- A day before a special six-coach Vande Bharat train was set to carry union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and a Japanese delegation led by land and transport minister H E Hiromasa Nakano from Surat to Bandra East, plans suddenly changed. On Thursday, officials decided the train would instead halt at Khar, from where the VIPs would be driven to Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to inspect the under-construction Bullet train station. The diversion served two purposes - Vaishnaw could inspect the newly upgraded Khar station, and the dignitaries were spared the sight of Bandra East's chaotic autorickshaw menace that clogs traffic outside the station. People familiar with the matter confirmed that managing the haphazardly parked rickshaws at Bandra would have been "a bigger problem to deal with." A railway official said the elevated deck at Khar - 5,000 sq metres over platforms and tracks - would be replicated at other stations. For 15 years, Bandra East has struggled with rickshaws parked arbitrarily from the station till BKC, Kalanagar and Bandra Terminus. Drivers solicit passengers aggressively, often blocking foot-over-bridges and causing peak-hour chaos. Auto union leader Thampi Kurien said, "The RTO and traffic police have failed to quell the problem. A joint committee of RTO, traffic police, unions and passengers is urgently needed." About 2.5 lakh people commute daily to BKC for work, excluding 2 lakh more who travel by road. Yet, according to unions, of the 1,000 rickshaws outside Bandra station, 5% operate illegally. An RTO officer admitted that drives against errant drivers resume only briefly, "We catch troublemakers, but the practice restarts in hours. People must voice opposition." Complaints include drivers charging Rs.20-Rs.40 per seat on a shared basis, packing in passengers, and refusing certain routes. A daily commuter, A Pandey, said, "I often walk till the Western Express Highway to take a rickshaw as most shared autos refuse BKC's internal roads or charge Rs.50 a seat in peak hours." Efforts to get a response from traffic police failed. At Khar, Vaishnaw and the Japanese delegation inspected the spacious elevated deck - Western Railway's largest - with three lifts, five escalators and a ramp with handrails. They then visited the BKC Bullet train site, where 84% of the 18.7 lakh cubic metres of excavation is complete. The site has reached 32.5 metres depth, equal to a 10-storey building. The underground station will have three levels, including six platforms of 415 metres each, linked to metro lines and roads, with skylights for natural lighting. Tunnel boring machine parts have also arrived. Later, Vaishnaw held a closed-door meeting with the Japanese team at a BKC hotel....