TIMES VIEW

Dadar Mumbai's dirtiest station, rock bottom in India ranking

In a nationwide cleanliness survey of 407 railway stations, 75 of them major ones, Mumbai has had a dirt-poor showing. Not only does no station from the city feature in the top 10, but also most have slipped from the spots they occupied the previous year. The exception is Bandra Terminus, which has moved up from an overall rank of 292 in 2016 to 31 now. There was also a category ranking (based on seven revenue segments that railway stations in India are divided into), in which Bandra Terminus secured the 15th spot among 75 stations (A1 category; station generates annual passenger revenue of above Rs 50 crore), up from the 60th place finish in the 2016 survey.As for Mumbai's other major stations, CST's overall rank has dropped from 129 to 153 and A1 category rank from 30 to 44. In the nationwide cleanliness survey of railway stations, Dadar has had a poor showing, dropping from the 102nd to the 330th place among 407 stations. Among the country's 75 major stations, its rank is 70, compared to 25 it secured in 2016. It goes without saying that Dadar is Mumbai's dirtiest major station.The survey was conducted by the Quality Council of India based on criteria such as toilets on platforms, and management of tracks and dustbins. Feedback was mainly based on direct observation by assessors and passenger interviews. Nationwide, in the A1 category , Visakhapatnam (AP) is the cleanest, followed by Secunderabad (Telangana), while Darbhanga (Bihar) is the dirtiest.CST, while among the world's busiest stations, has poor access to basic necessities like water, food and urinals, and there is only one toilet block for both mainline and suburban commuters. It also scores low on security and other parameters: metal detectors and baggage scanners set up after the November 2008 terror attack don't function. As for Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT), it is far less crowded than CST, but way dirtier. And though security is visible at the gates, there is little real patrolling.But the railways says steps are being taken to improve the situation. For CST, an official said that lifts and escalators will be built to help easy movement and four noiseless fans have been installed, which also facilitate better air circulation.At LTT, according to a Central Railway official, four escalators will come up soon and tenders are being planned for cleaning up the entire complex. To LTT, the survey gave an overall rank of 278 (down from 85 in 2016) and a category (A1; station generates annual passenger revenue of above Rs 50 crore) rank of 60 (down from 22 in 2016).Mumbai, being the country's commercial capital, deserves much better standards of cleanliness at its railway stations. Merely organising cleanliness and awareness campaigns ritualistically every year is not going to make any difference unless railway officials are held accountable. A mechanism should be developed on the lines of advanced locality managements, wherein passengers have a say in rating stations every month. More importantly, those who litter and spit should be dealt with strictly; penalties can be levied either by railway staff or by outsourced personnel on the lines of the BMC's clean-up marshals.With inputs from Elizabeth Sweety Varghese