Toliet Trouble: not for use

CHENNAI: Seven-year-old Ramya was on platform 2 of Kasturibai Nagar MRTS railway station on Sunday, making her way to what she thought was the toilet when her mother told her there was no point in going there as it was not yet open for public use. This is the inconvenience that not only Ramya, but all passengers at railway stations across the city and suburbs face: they have no access to the public toilets on the platforms.

It was a month ago that a group of activists from the Satta Panchayat Iyakkam (SPI) submitted a detailed report on the state of the toilets in railway stations over three stretches, but passengers are yet to see any improvement.The report said only 11 per cent of stations on the Velachery-Beach stretch, 19 per cent on the Tambaram-Park stretch and 30 per cent on the Avadi-Chennai Central stretch had toilets. Commuters still had to put up with the lack of this basic amenity in other stations.

Toilets on the first floor of Kasturibai station are guarded by walls so that no on can access them. “At the ticket counter, a bill reads, ‘The stream of cleanliness is the dream of railways’. It seems that it still remains a dream,” regrets S. Mahesh Kumar, a commuter at the station.Not only passengers at some stations but also the men in khaki put up with this deplorable situation. “Unlike passengers, we are made to remain in the station for six hours.

So, you can imagine our plight,” said a police constable at Tiruvanmiyur MRTS station.EMU railway stations are no different. More than 10,000 passengers visit the Guindy railway station every day. But it does not have a single public toilet.“There is only one staff toilet here. When women or senior citizens approach us, we allow them to use it,” said the station master at Guindy. “It is more than a year ago that we had written to the authorities to equip the station with a toilet, but to no avail,” he said.

“There are 13 stations on the Chennai Central-Gummidipoondi stretch and each has a toilet that is kept locked,” said D. Dhanushkodi, secretary, Rail Passengers Association, Chennai-Gummidipoondi.SPI activists said they had not got any response from the railways so far. “We submitted the report a month ago. But we are yet to get any reply,” said A. Jaiganesh, state secretary, SPI. However, railway officials said the three-page report, submitted by SPI, was still being processed. The official also said the process was in the preliminary stage.