Egmore, Central Railway stations not clean enough?

Chennai: Last year, Rs 48 crore was the amount spent for cleanliness on trains and stations in Chennai division. Despite the money spent on maintaining cleanliness in the division, the two A1 stations had failed to find a spot in the top 100 cleanest stations of the country earlier in July this year.

Sourced through an RTI response, it was found that in the Chennai division consisting of 137 stations, Rs 48 crore was spent on the upkeep of trains and stations, including salaries of cleaning staff, aid for cleaning and sourcing of cleaning equipment.

However, in July 2016 a survey taken across 407 stations all over the country had found that stations in Chennai division performed poorly with Chennai Central, which sees a footfall of over 4 lakh every day, ranking 121 and Chennai Egmore, another A1 station, ranking 141 in cleanliness.

Senior officials, however, say that cleanliness in the first priority of the division.
“The survey results did not take into criteria considering the mega-size stations which Central and Egmore are because they see over a lakh footfalls daily. Despite the survey results, cleanliness is still our priority,” said the divisional railway manager, Anupam Sharma.

“Since then we have sourced new mechanised equipment for cleaning and mopping some stations like Central and Egmore,” he said. With schemes such as On Board Housekeeping Services (OBHS) on trains, railways is going an extra mile to ensure that passengers’ woes are attended to, another official said.

According to passenger association members, railways should enforce strict measures against commuters who dirty stations. “There has been a good improvement in cleanliness at most stations but at some stations, much improvement is needed. One of the reasons could be that large stations, like MRTS, are difficult to be maintained. Toilets and drinking water areas are places where railway officials should pay more attention to,” said V. Rama Rao, of Traffic and Transportation Forum.

A. Senthil, of NGO Satta Panchayat Iyyakkam, regularly checks conditions of public amenities at railway stations and said that much improvement is needed at various suburban stations as the toilets and washbasins are poorly maintained.
“Many of the taps don’t supply water despite having a water connection,” he added.