Railways needs to clean up act to stay on track

CHENNAI: Southern Railway sees itself as serious competition for airlines with premium services from Chennai to cities such as Madurai, Coimbatore and Bangalore. But passenger feedback is a mixed bag.


The Chennai-Mysuru Shatabdi Express is rated the third most clean premium train in the country, but the Chennai Central-Madurai Duronto Express has gotten only 36% marks (121/333) as far as feedback from passengers is concerned in the railways’ own cleanliness survey. The Chennai-New Delhi Tamil Nadu Express and Grand Trunk Express have scored 224 and 218 out of 333 on the same count. Not good news for the Railways as all these are premium trains.

The most common complaints are about the quality of linen provided, inadequate water supply and non-functioning of air-conditioning on premium trains. The survey, ‘Swach Rail Swach Bharat-Train cleanliness survey’was done for 209 trains across the country.

It is a three-part survey that focuses on cleanliness and sanitation at the washing lines and terminal and halt stations; condition of toilets, seats and windows, doorways, gangways, vestibules, and linen; pest and waste management. The third part deals with passenger feedback.

Passengers were especially critical of the Chennai-Madurai Duronto Express. They said air-conditioning did not work, there was no water in toilets and wash basins, the coaches were of poor quality and cockroaches were everywhere.T he quality of linen provided to passengers has emerged as a major challenge for Southern Railway; it has been ranked poorly on that indicator in the survey.

Officials were unable to pin-point any specific reasons for the poor services. One reason attributed was low patronage on the Chennai- Madurai Duronto. Officials also said it was difficult to keep the coaches clean as there was only one stop of the seven-hour journey.

V Mahendran (37), a native of Sivakasi who lives in Chennai, said the Duronto’s old coaches had been replaced with new Linke Hoffman Busche (LHB) coaches around three months ago. “Now the feedback is much better. The survey may have been done for the old train,” he said.

Mahendran said the trains to Delhi — Tamil Nadu Express and Grand Trunk Express — had a long running time, which took a toll on cleanliness.

However, it’s not all bad news. S Prabhu, a railway blogger who travels regularly to the southern districts from Chennai, said the cleanliness on trains had improved vastly. “This is for trains that leave from Egmore,” he said. This is borne out by the fact that the Chennai Egmore-Mangalore Express is ranked the fourth cleanest non-premium train across the country.

A senior official said the cleanliness of trains to the south had improved after all four coaching depots in Madurai division came under a single cleaning contract.