If you have recently been to the Ahmedabad Railway station and wondered about its cleanliness, you might not have fond memories. The station has definitely lost its shine and even the Swachata Abhiyan, a tom-tommed campaign, is a failure.
A survey by the Centre, for its Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat Ranking has shown that none of Gujarat’s railway stations figures in the top 10 clean stations either in the A1 category or even the A category. In fact, Ahmedabad station ranks 17, which is much behind Vadodara that ranks 15th in the survey.
What is surprising is that this, despite the fact that in 2017, the survey had ranked Ahmedabad as the 7th cleanest station in the A1 category among 75 stations.
Bhuj railway station had been ranked as the 10th cleanest in the country in the A category railways station among 332 stations in 2017.
The top three positions in the A1 category this year has been taken by Jodhpur, Jaipur and Tirupati while in the A categories the top three cleanest stations are Marwar, Phulera and Warangal.
No station from Gujarat also figures in the top 10 stations in A1 (annual passenger revenue of over Rs 50 crore) and A (annual passenger revenue between Rs6 crore and Rs 50 crore) categories that have shown the maximum improvement.
DRM, Ahmedabad Railway station, Dinesh Kumar said it is not that the station has become unclean or dirty. “The rankings are based on feedback and that is dependent on the perception of people. When a station is dirty and it is cleaned, the passengers suddenly get the perception that there is a visible level of cleanliness. But when a station is already clean it is difficult for them to see much difference from saying one-year to another,” said Kumar.
He said many other things that might have contributed to the perception could be that the city railway station being an old one has an infrastructure that is quite ancient. “Take for example the floors that are old and look worn out. So, despite the station being clean, the overall impression would be that it is relatively less clean,” said Kumar.
He said they are in the process of re-flooring the station and tenders for the same have been floated. “We will soon be among the top cleanest stations in the country once again,” said Kumar.
PRO Pradeep Kumar said that how clean a station is not only in the hands of the authorities but also in the hands of passengers who use it. “You can clean a station every hour but it will be a lost cause if passengers don’t cooperate. Despite our efforts, passengers continue to litter. Even if the passengers were to make an effort not to dirty the station, it would help a lot in keeping the station clean and improve its ranking,” said Kumar.
(With inputs from Sharad Kumar)
