Indian Railways to observe “Cleanliness Week”

The Indian Railways is to observe Cleanliness Week between August 10, 2020 and August 15, 2020. The week will give the message of significance of cleanliness.

Highlights

During the week, the Indian Railways is to launch special cleanliness drive that will focus on cleanliness in the station offices, tracks, worksites, colonies and other areas in and around railway stations. The drive will focus on plastic waste collection from the tracks.

The Indian Railways has launched several initiatives to ensure hygiene and cleanliness in the trains and Railway station toilets.

8 Major Cleanliness initiatives of Indian Railways

Bio Toilets

The Indian Railways intensified the pace of installation of bio toilets in the coaches. This was done to avoid the waste from falling on the platform lines and tracks. Under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan the Railway Ministry had planned to replace all the toilets in the broad-gauge coaching fleet by 2019.

Coach Mitra

The Indian Railways launched “Coach Mitra” in around 1000 On Board Housekeeping Service. It is a single window system to register coach related needs of the passengers. The requirements might include disinfection, cleaning, train lighting, air conditioning, etc.

The other cleanliness initiatives are as follows

  • Adding dust bins and health faucets in all coaches
  • Separate toilets for male and female passengers at the Railway stations
  • Pay and Use Toilets at Railway Stations
  • Swachhta Pakhwada: These were cleanliness drives that created awareness about cleanliness standards of trains and railway stations.
  • The Indian Railways deployed machineries and improved mechanised cleaning in about 520 railway stations.
  • On Board Housekeeping Service was provided in more than 1050 pairs of trains.

Stations Cleanliness Survey Report, 2019

In order to keep periodic checks on the success of the initiatives launched, the Indian Railways launched third party audit and cleanliness ranking. The Stations Cleanliness Survey Report was one such report that scored and ranked the stations. According to the report, the top three cleanest railway stations include Jodhpur, Jaipur and Durgapura.

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