People traveling in the railways are full fare faring customers, deserving of proper facilities and cleanliness. However, since Railways is a government enterprise, authorities feel that all such standards are just prescriptions and not actual things to enforce. So travelers have to put up with dirty stations, with beggars on the trains, and with general unsanitary conditions (including in the toilets). And the biggest issue is that Indian Railways has a large number of cleaning staff, ‘safai karamcharis’, but given that you need enforcement, you would not expect things to improve.
The biggest issue is that for such kind of issues, consumers do not even have a channel to complain about that is easily visible to regular users. If you go on the net, then there are a number of places where you can lodge issues against the Indian Railways, for example
1. Rediff site tips
2. Trainenquiry.com
3. File your woes at mywoes.com
However, people traveling in the Indian Railways run Mumbai locals are reporting a lot of problems with regard to cleanliness of the trains, such as cockroaches, bugs, etc, and are not finding a listening post where the problems can be solved. Refer this article:
Though 2007 has been declared the year of cleanliness by Indian Railways, the Mumbai zone does not reflect it. Commuters complain that local trains and platforms on both WR and CR lines are infested with rats, cockroaches and termites. Railway staffers have been trying to bring the menace to the notice of their seniors, but without any results.
A system of carrying out periodic pest control operations on railway premises does exist, but only on paper. Railway staffers insist that no pest control drive has been carried out for a long time.
The results are evident down the line as one travels past Kandivli, Malad and Andheri. At each of these stations, staffers and commuters are complaining of the growing menace of rodents and termites. “We’ve been complaining against the contractors who do not carry out any pest control services, but no action is forthcoming,” said a staffer at Malad.
Commuters also face the problem inside train compartments. Though railway officials swear that rakes are cleaned regularly, travellers often complain about having to share space with bugs on a daily basis. “I see cockroaches crawling out from under the seats every day. It feels so dirty,” said Darshana Gupta, a first class traveller between Kandivali and Lower Parel.
Nearly 60 lakh passengers travel daily on Mumbai’s suburban railway network. Railway staffers say that the sweeping of stations is carried out in shifts, but the quantum of work is not in keeping with requirements. This is despite the fact that the organisation has a huge ‘safai karmachari’ workforce for the task.
Railways claim that all big stations are washed periodically. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) station is supposed to be washed almost every night in the wee hours when services stop. About the issue of cleanliness, WR’s chief public relations officer Pranai Prabhakar denied that it was a serious problem.
What can a person really do in the face on non-cooperation from a government department in this regard ? The RTI Act is really not usable in this regard. Normally, commuters vote with their feet if they have an action, and that is what makes railways move. As an example, when low cost airlines came up and people traveling on long routes switched to them, it made the railways sit up and try steps to get people back. Hence, now many trains have better facilities, run more on time, and so on.