Madurai, Coimbatore among top Swachh railway junctions in India

The preliminary report on cleanliness standards at 407 select railway stations in the country has some good news as all stations in Tamil Nadu secured its positions in the first three levels. In the survey done by TNS India for Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), 75 A1 category and 332 A category stations were taken up for the survey based on passenger feedback.

In the A1 category of 75 stations, Madurai Junction was ranked ninth with Level 2 score followed by Coimbatore station at the same level. 

However, Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore managed to get only Level 3 scores in the A1 category. The passenger feedback survey is part of the ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat’ project and the preliminary report will be followed by a final report shortly. 

“Apart from passenger feedback, final report will also factor in the existing infrastructure, responses from railway staff and non-railway service providers who are part of the Service Improvement Group (SIG) at stations,” the preliminary report said.

After scrutiny of report, Ministry of Railways will take further action to improve cleanliness standards at major railway stations. Even though in the A1 category, none of the railway stations from the state got the highest Level 1 score, there is more good news in the survey of A category stations. Kumbakonam, Salem and Kovilpatti railway stations in the state got the highest Level 1 score in the preliminary survey report for A category stations. 

Erode, Tiruchirappalli, Virudhunagar, Mettupalayam, Thanjavur, Mayiladuthurai, Karur, Kanyakumari, Nagercoil, Katpadi, Rameswaram and Dindigul stations in the state got the Level 2 score. The stations that got Level 3 score in the survey for A category stations are Tirunelveli, Tirupur, Villupuram, Chengalpet, Thoothukudi, Tambaram, Arakkonam and Jolarpet. It may be noted that the survey teams collected the passenger feedback face-to-face by visiting each of the 407 stations across 16 Zonal Railways. 

“The survey conducted using questionnaire on cleanliness indicators asked every passenger to rate the cleanliness objectively on 40 different cleanliness parameters,” the report informed. Explaining the methodology, the report said that the rating on parameters was taken on scale of 1 to 5 where 1 stood for ‘Poor’ and 5 for ‘Excellent’. ‘Did not know’ or ‘Did not experience’ was also available as an option. “The final rating score was then spread on a scale of 0 to 1000,” it added.