A model rail station gone awry

A model rail station gone awry
Deccan Herald

With a daily load of 74 pairs of trains and around three lakh people, who visit it everyday, including relatives of passengers, the Bangalore City Railway Station is bursting at its seams, not as much with people, but with the nuisance they create in using the public services there.

The instances of abuse by the janata are far greater than the use. For instance, despite the notice inside the trains and the regular announcements made on the public address system at the station not to use the toilets when the train is stationary at a station, travellers find it the most suitable time to ease themselves just then.

The result is that the station tracks are laden with human faeces and urine and an unbearable stench emanates from them to the platform and surrounding environs. When Deccan Herald visited the station in the afternoon, there were Class IV employees washing the tracks while Inter-City, the train running between Bangalore and Hubli, was about to leave. Unmindful of the men on the tracks, commuters shamelessly continued to dirty the place.

The platforms are not spared either. There are enough dustbins on the platforms, most of them are waiting to be used. There are papers, polythene bags, waste food, plastic bottles etc., strewn, close to the gaping bins. The walls of the subway that connects Platform One to Eight are stained with red marks of chewed paan despite a public notice to keep the place clean.

Routine abuse

“We do routine mechanised cleaning of the platforms between 12 midnight and 5 am but in the morning, the filth and stench is back,” said Mr Mahesh Kumar, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Bangalore Division, South Western Railway. The irony is that the Bangalore City Railway Station is set to be a model worth replicating in other Indian cities.

“Recently a team of Railway Board officials came on inspection and were impressed by the City Station, especially with the air-conditioned waiting rooms and lounge that was built some time ago in the new building,” said the DRM.

With the usual leaking taps, stained walls, filthy tracks and platforms and pay and use toilets abandoned for ‘free for all’ tracks, the plight of the railway station will remain status quo till the people learn to use public utility services. Educated, urban middle class is as much responsible as their unlettered rural brethren.

Apart from the cleanliness or the lack of it, what is also of interest is the way the people use the gadgets installed for their convenience. There are 10 automatic platform ticket vending machines kept at vantage points and in stalls, but one should see the serpentine queue in front of the manual issuing counter.

“That’s because most people don’t bother to read the instructions,” said a commuter. On an average, around 15,000 platform tickets are issued everyday at the City Station, out of which 5,000 are issued manually.