Indian Railways, the country’s national transporter, is taking various steps to ensure that it maintains cleanliness in its coaches including the toilets.
In a written reply by the Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal in Rajya Sabha has listed various steps taken by the Indian Railways towards cleanliness.
- As a push to cleanliness drive, the coaches including toilets are cleaned at both ends (starting point and destination), and that includes mechanised cleaning.
- The national transporter carries out special cleanliness drives and awareness campaigns from time to time to make the passengers travelling in the trains more aware of the benefits of keeping the train coaches clean.
- The railways provided Onboard Housekeeping Service (OBHS) in nearly 1090 pairs of trains including Rajdhani, Shatabdi and other important long distance Mail/Express trains for cleaning of coach toilets, doorways, aisles and passenger compartments during the run of the trains.
- The ‘Coach Mitra’ service has been provided in around 1050 pairs of OBHS trains as a single-window interface to register coach related requirements of passengers such as cleaning, disinfestation, linen, train lighting, air conditioning and watering of coaches.
- Railways also started the Clean Train Station (CTS) scheme and it has also been prescribed for limited mechanized cleaning attention to identified trains including cleaning of toilets during their scheduled stoppages en route to nominated stations.
- Also, in a PPP mode, Indian Railways has outsourced cleanliness programs as per zones and such bodies have to report on real time basis to the zonal offices.
- In a bid for better waste management, Railways has started to provide dustbins in non-AC coaches whereas previously the service was only available in AC coaches.
- The Railways carry out a frequent pest and rodent control of coaches by authorised professional agencies.
- In a bid to address the complaints regarding any such complaints, travellers can reach out via twitter social handles and can expect a quicker resolution of such issues.
- In a bid to improve cleanliness and avoid littering of food, Indian railway is also focusing more on online food ordering in train with proper FSSAI approved packaging norms.
How Indian Railways is Improving Cleanliness in Trains